St.

John Fisher College

Fisher Digital Publications

Education Doctoral Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. School of Education

8-2011

Sergeants as Leaders: A Case Study of Transformational

Leadership Among First-Line Supervisors in the Police
Department
Betty L. Campbell
St. John Fisher College

Follow this and additional works at: https://fisherpub.sjfc.edu/education_etd

Part of the Education Commons

How has open access to Fisher Digital Publications
benefited you?

Recommended Citation
Campbell, Betty L., "Sergeants as Leaders: A Case Study of Transformational Leadership Among First-Line
Supervisors in the Police Department" (2011). Education Doctoral. Paper 48.

Please note that the Recommended Citation provides general citation information and may not be
appropriate for your discipline. To receive help in creating a citation based on your discipline, please visit
http://libguides.sjfc.edu/citations.

This document is posted at https://fisherpub.sjfc.edu/education_etd/48 and is brought to you for free and open
access by Fisher Digital Publications at St. John Fisher College. For more information, please contact
fisherpub@sjfc.edu.
Sergeants as Leaders: A Case Study of Transformational Leadership Among
First-Line Supervisors in the Police Department

Abstract
This qualitative research examined the leadership styles and professional development practices of a
police department, the reflective experiences of police sergeants as they transition from being patrol
officers, and the perception of police sergeants of their career development. Specifically, this study
sought to answer the following essential questions: (a) What are the self-reported and observed
leadership styles and practices of police sergeants at the Echo Bay police department? (b) To what extent
do police sergeants practice the tenants of transformational leadership, and (c) How do police
departments develop the leadership competencies of their police sergeants. The researcher used four
different techniques (a) in-depth interviews, (b) focus groups, (c) direct observations, and (d) a survey as
part of the qualitative component of the research and the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire as part of
its selection activity. The results using a coding process revealed some major themes that indicated that
sergeants used idealized attributes, individualized consideration, inspirational motivation; all features of
transformational leadership. The studied police department promoted professional development by
offering tuition reimbursement, job enhancement, and job enrichment. The research revealed that the
police department had an informal talent management system which included: coaching, mentoring, job
rotation, and job expansion. The researcher recommended that further research should include the entire
command structure (patrol officer to commissioner) and, most importantly, the institutionalization of a
talent management system in which patrol officers are exposed to leadership development early in their
careers to help navigate the complex law enforcement landscape of the 21st century.

Document Type
Dissertation

Degree Name
Doctor of Education (EdD)

Department
Executive Leadership

First Supervisor
Claudia L. Edwards

Second Supervisor
John J. Koster

Subject Categories
Education

This dissertation is available at Fisher Digital Publications: https://fisherpub.sjfc.edu/education_etd/48

 Sergeants as Leaders: A Case Study of
Transformational Leadership Among
First-Line Supervisors in the
Police Department

By

Betty L. Campbell

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree
Ed.D. in Executive Leadership

Supervised by
Dr. Claudia L. Edwards

Committee Member
Dr. John J. Koster

Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. School of Education

St. John Fisher College at the College of New Rochelle

August 2011
 Dedication

I dedicate this to my parents Verta R. Campbell and the late Howard B. Campbell,

Jr. and to my children Christopher, Lawrence III, and Olivia. Thank you, for your

unconditional love and support. To the home team: my husband, Lawrence E. Darden Jr.

thank you for supporting me through this journey and taking such great care of the kids.

To my sister Valerie thank you for always being there for me. I could not have reached

this milestone without your support and encouragement. To the countless number of

family and friends (Karen, Susan, Sharon, Christy, Ms. Iris, and Donna) who have

supported me both emotionally and spiritually, thank you. Lastly, to my Executive

Mentor, Dr. Gilbert Louis, thank you for your guidance, support, and friendship.

ii
 Biographical Sketch

Betty L. Campbell is currently the Director/District Liaison of the 9th Judicial Problem

Solving Courts, which is a part of the New York State Unified Court System. Ms.

Campbell attended Iona College from 1994 to 1996 and graduated with a Bachelor of

Arts/Sciences degree in 1996. She attended New York University from 2000 to 2003 and

graduated with a Master of Public Administration. She came to St. John Fisher College in

the summer of 2009 and began doctoral studies in the Ed.D. Program in Executive

Leadership. Ms. Campbell pursued her research in Transformational Leadership in

Policing under the direction of Dr. Claudia L. Edwards and Dr. John J. Koster and

received the Ed.D. degree in August 2011.

iii
 Acknowledgment

I would like to extend a special thank you to the Police Commissioner of the Echo

Bay Police Department under whose leadership and guidance police officers for the

twenty-first century are developed. I would like to acknowledge the men and women of

the Echo Bay Police Department for their hard work and dedication to the policing

profession. To my “gatekeeper” and expert panel members thank you for sharing your

expertise, wisdom and guidance. To the sergeants of Echo Bay, thank you for allowing

me the opportunity and privilege to share your story. I would like to thank my Chair and

Committee member: Dr. Claudia L. Edwards and Dr. John J. Koster for their support and

guidance. To the Executive Leaders in the judiciary: Hon. Alan Scheinkman, Nancy

Mangold, Hon. Richard Molea, Hon. Juanita Bing Newton, and the Hon. Preston Scher

(retired) your insight, guidance, support and most importantly your encouragement was

invaluable, thank you. To cohort one at SJFC at CNR it was a memorable experience and

I wish you all the best. To the SMART team Harry, Janice, Noreen, Shelly, Estee, and

Tahira, thank you for being such a great support system. To Dr. Sam Walton and Dr.

Ronald Valenti, it is because of your vision for the program that my dream has become a

reality. Thank you.

iv
 Abstract

This qualitative research examined the leadership styles and professional

development practices of a police department, the reflective experiences of police

sergeants as they transition from being patrol officers, and the perception of police

sergeants of their career development. Specifically, this study sought to answer the

following essential questions: (a) What are the self-reported and observed leadership

styles and practices of police sergeants at the Echo Bay police department? (b) To what

extent do police sergeants practice the tenants of transformational leadership, and (c)

How do police departments develop the leadership competencies of their police

sergeants. The researcher used four different techniques (a) in-depth interviews, (b) focus

groups, (c) direct observations, and (d) a survey as part of the qualitative component of

the research and the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire as part of its selection activity.

The results using a coding process revealed some major themes that indicated that

sergeants used idealized attributes, individualized consideration, inspirational motivation;

all features of transformational leadership. The studied police department promoted

professional development by offering tuition reimbursement, job enhancement, and job

enrichment. The research revealed that the police department had an informal talent

management system which included: coaching, mentoring, job rotation, and job

expansion. The researcher recommended that further research should include the entire

command structure (patrol officer to commissioner) and, most importantly, the

institutionalization of a talent management system in which patrol officers are exposed to

v
leadership development early in their careers to help navigate the complex law

enforcement landscape of the 21st century.

vi
 Table of Contents

Dedication ........................................................................................................................... ii

Biographical Sketch ........................................................................................................... iii

Acknowledgment ............................................................................................................... iv

Abstract ............................................................................................................................... v

List of Tables ...................................................................................................................... x

List of Figures .................................................................................................................... xi

Chapter 1: Introduction ....................................................................................................... 1

Problem Statement ...................................................................................................9

Theoretical Rationale ...............................................................................................9

Statement of Purpose .............................................................................................12

Research Questions ................................................................................................13

Significance of the Study .......................................................................................13

Definitions of Terms ..............................................................................................16

Chapter 2: Review of the Literature.................................................................................. 20

Introduction and Purpose .......................................................................................20

Human Resource Development .............................................................................21

Leadership Development .......................................................................................25

Transformational Leadership in Policing...............................................................37

Conclusion .............................................................................................................41

Chapter 3: Research Design Methodology ....................................................................... 44

vii
 General Perspective ...............................................................................................44

Research Context ...................................................................................................46

Research Participants .............................................................................................48

Instruments Used in Data Collection .....................................................................53

Procedures for Data Collection ..............................................................................57

Chapter 4: Results ............................................................................................................. 62

Research Questions ................................................................................................62

Data Analysis and Findings ...................................................................................67

Research Question 1 ..............................................................................................69

Research Question 2 ..............................................................................................86

Research Question 3 ..............................................................................................98

Research Question 4 ............................................................................................107

Summary of Overall Results ................................................................................112

Chapter 5: Discussion ..................................................................................................... 114

Introduction ..........................................................................................................114

Implications of Study ...........................................................................................116

Limitations ...........................................................................................................121

Recommendations ................................................................................................123

Conclusions ..........................................................................................................125

References ....................................................................................................................... 130

Appendix A ..................................................................................................................... 140

Appendix B ..................................................................................................................... 141

Appendix C ..................................................................................................................... 145

viii
Appendix D ..................................................................................................................... 148

Appendix E ..................................................................................................................... 150

Appendix F...................................................................................................................... 154

Appendix G ..................................................................................................................... 156

Appendix H ..................................................................................................................... 159

Appendix I ...................................................................................................................... 161

ix
 List of Tables

Item Title Page

Table 4.1 Leadership Characteristics in Rank Order as Perceived by Participants ..................
71
Table 4.2 Frequency That Sergeant’s Transformational Leadership Qualities and
Subthemes Were Expressed ...........................................................................
88
Table 4.3 MLQ Subscale Percentile Ranks for Sergeants as Leaders ......................................
97
Table 4.4 Theme Frequencies for Research Question 3............................................................
106
Table 4.5 Theme Frequencies for Research Question 4............................................................
108

x
 List of Figures

Item Title Page

Figure 4.1 Practice of Transformational Leadership Qualities Ranked in Rank Order
by Frequency. ...................................................................................................
90

xi
 Chapter 1: Introduction

Today the world is confronting a number of challenges: increased famine,

poverty, economic distress, terrorist threats, and politically destabilized countries. The

U.S. economy is faltering, a condition long associated with the increase of crime. Recent

news reports have highlighted the different types of crimes sweeping the nation. Events

such as (a) Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme; (b) the fall of New York’s former top cop

Bernard Kerik; (c) failed terrorist attacks on Christmas Day 2009, Northwest Flight 253,

and the 2010 Times Square bombing plot; and (d) the Newburgh Four, exemplify the

diversity and complexity of the emerging crime trends facing police departments across

the nation.

Emerging trends in policing. In the United States crime is becoming more

complex and there is an expansion of new types of crimes. Medicaid fraud rivals drug-

related crime in South Florida (“Medicare Fraud,” 2010). In comparison to 30 years ago,

types of crimes have changed dramatically. Crimes such as bioterrorism, cybercrime,

identity theft, domestic violence, gang violence, drug offenses, illegal immigration, and

human sex trafficking have increased and require police officers to be more sophisticated

than the criminals they are trying to arrest. Reports from the Bureau of Justice Statistics

reveal that the demographic of offenders has changed over the years and more women

and juveniles, for example, are entering the criminal justice system and being charged

with serious, violent crimes. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of

Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention’s December 2009 Juvenile Justice Bulletin,

“In 2008, law enforcement agencies in the United States made an estimated 2.11 million

1
arrests of persons younger than age 18” (as cited in Puzzanchera, 2009, p. 1). Although

the overall arrests of juveniles in 2008 were 3% less than in 2007, violent crimes

increased in both 2005 and again in 2006. “Juveniles accounted for 16% of all violent

crime arrests and 26% of all property crime arrests in 2008” (Puzzanchera, p. 1). The

increase in property, violent, white collar crimes and terrorism both domestic and abroad

coupled with limited resources creates additional tension on an already stressed and

overstretched police force.

Since September 11, 2001, the world has changed for the United States. Because

the United States’ open system of government is vulnerable to acts of terrorism, the

Congress established the Department of Homeland Security to protect the nation. In 2002

President George W. Bush signed the Homeland Security Act. The essential mission of

Homeland Security was to unite agencies charged with protecting the country. The

establishment of Homeland Security created an infrastructure that allowed for the

dissemination of critical intelligence and collaborative partnerships among federal, state,

and local law enforcement agencies. Homeland Security is responsible for (a) border and

transportation security, (b) emergency preparedness and response, (c) chemical,

biological, radiological, and nuclear countermeasure, and (d) information analysis and

infrastructure protection (Department of Homeland Security, 2008).

In 2010, Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano charged the Homeland

Security Advisory Council with the task of working with federal, state, and local law

enforcement as well as targeted community agencies to develop recommendations on

how the U.S. Department of Homeland Security can support efforts to fight violent

extremism. The taskforce developed recommendations that examined the following areas:

2
(a) Best practices—what are law enforcement agencies doing to successfully combat

violent crimes? (b) Information sharing—what type of intelligence would be helpful for

local authorities to identify and address ideologically motivated violent crimes? (c)

Training and other support—what type of training and technical assistance is needed for

local authorities to better integrate community-oriented policing activities into their

overall efforts to create safer communities? The taskforce highlighted the importance of

training in order to improve the capacity of law enforcement personnel to work with

diverse religious, ethnic, and radical communities, as well as to understand and identify

potential threats to their communities (Homeland Security Advisory Council, 2010)

The work of the Homeland Security Advisory Council is just one example of how

law enforcement agencies are dealing with crime in a new environment today. Law

enforcement agencies are also examining more effective ways of developing their human

resource capital, such as leadership development, in order to meet the growing demand

for more innovative policing strategies. The literature suggests that leadership

development is critical for all levels of police organizations (Isenberg, 2010). This study,

however, will pay specific attention to leadership development of sergeants, the first-line

supervisors in police departments.

Training and development for law enforcement. The skill set required for

modern society’s police personnel has grown beyond the technical capacity to discharge

police duties. It now includes conceptual and leadership skills to manage law

enforcement in an ever complex environment. The increase in crime, the corrosive effects

of poverty, and the changing nature of policing to include problem-oriented policing and

community policing have dictated that the new officer be capable of using good judgment

3
and discretion as well as developing a budget and using sophisticated logistics and data

mining techniques. Johnson (2008) writes of sergeants playing a key role in the

development of police officers, and Ianni-Reuss (1983) stresses the different roles of

police officers subject to their operating environments.

Sergeants, who are the first-line supervisors in most police departments, have a

substantive impact on the formal training and the continuing education of front line

police officers (Engel & Worden, 2003). They serve as mentors and coaches and are an

available resource to police officers who seek counsel regarding policy, procedures, rules,

and regulations. Research suggests that sergeants play an important role in the

implementation and success of new policing strategies such as problem-oriented policing

and community policing ( Engel & Worden, 2003).

In spite of this need for change, strategies for developing leadership among public

sector organization, specifically law enforcement agencies continue to be dominated by

outdated practices born out of the civil-service model. Training, for example, is focused

on management versus leadership in order to develop succession planning for how

officers are promoted. For the most part, police training focuses on effective arrest,

weapons use, increased reporting precision, police officer’s safety, and due process for

offenders. Technical training limits the job of policing even as the job responsibilities

have expanded. The complex environment, the risk management needs, the litigation

exposure, the requirement to be more effective, all these aspects of the job exert pressure

on human resources. A review of the program literature for the police supervision course

developed by the New York State Office of Public Safety focuses on basic management

and supervisory skills (New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services, 2009).

4
These included, but were not limited to, planning, organizing, and staffing for police

personnel. Such skills are critical to the smooth operation of a police department, but

insufficient to wrestle with scarce resources, shifting offender populations, and the

changing nature of crime.

Government agencies have led the way, therefore, to facilitate management

reform by implementing new initiatives aimed at increasing organizational productivity,

employee satisfaction, and improving employees’ job performance (Jurkiewicz &

Massey, 1997; Selden, Ingraham, & Jacobson, 2001). Research suggests that leaders have

a tremendous effect on individuals in organizations and on the performance of those

organizations (Hennessey, 1998). Besides technical knowledge and proficient managerial

skills, leaders need to develop and possess the competencies to articulate mission and

vision and to provide inspirational motivation (Trottier, Van Wart, & Wang, 2008a).

Previous research on organizational leadership in the public sector has recognized

significant weaknesses, including the need for better articulation of leadership models, in

these settings as well as empirical testing of these models (Van Wart, 2003).

Transformational leadership as described by Bass & Riggio (2006) is the ability to

engage in idealized influence, intellectual stimulation, individual consideration, and

inspirational motivations. Transformational leaders develop a shared vision, a technique

that experts in the field consider effective in a fluid environment. Research suggests that

transformational leadership positively affects a number of variables conducive to higher

productivity and collective efficacy (Kane & Tremble, 2000; Murphy & Drodge, 2004;

Singer & Singer, 1990).

5
 This study sought to understand how leadership competencies among first-line

supervisors were developed within a civil service personnel system. Although the

literature has examined leadership in the public sector in general, this study examined

leadership within a law enforcement environment in particular. The literature supports the

fact that leadership can be found at all levels of an organization (Baker, 2006; Isenberg,

2010; Kouzes & Posner, 2007). This study provided an in-depth look at the perceptions

of first-line supervisors with respect to their leadership practices and their

professional/leadership development within the organization. To what extent are first-line

supervisors being prepared to meet the emerging demands of 21st-century law

enforcement? What challenges do first-line supervisor face when they transition from

police officer to sergeant?

The role of police sergeants. The traditional police ranks starting from the top of

the organizations are: (a) chief of police, (b) deputy chief, (c) colonel, (d) major, (e)

captain, (f) lieutenant, (g) sergeant, (h) detective, (i) officer, and (j) corporal. Police

organizations utilize different structures depending on what is needed to fulfill the

mission of the organization. The rank of sergeant is one of authority. Sergeants are the

first-line supervisors in police departments and are responsible for coordinating and

supervising the police officers assigned to them. Sergeants’ responsibilities are both

administrative and technical in nature. They include, but are not limited to: (a) assisting

in the day-to-day operation of the work shift, (b) directing and performing criminal

investigations, (c) booking prisoners, and (d) ensuring that police officers under their

command follow all applicable laws and procedures. Sergeants serve as the primary

trainers of police officers and are in a position to influence officers’ behaviors (Engel and

6
Worden, 2003; Johnson, 2005). Wright, Alison, and Crego (2008) suggest that effective

police supervisors are instrumental in (a) communicating organizational changes to

employees, (b) preventing ethical misconduct, and (c) enhancing public perceptions of

police.

Sergeants possess most of the technical skills needed to develop new officers and

are also strategically positioned in the organization to implement new and existing

policies and procedures. Their roles constantly change and evolve based on the needs of

their departments. The size of the police department can determine the

role/responsibilities of a police sergeant. The smaller the department, the broader the

sergeant’s responsibilities may be; for example, in a smaller department the sergeant

might be responsible for budgets, public relations, and policy development in addition to

supervision. In a larger police department, however, a sergeant’s duties might be limited

to specific, specialized functions. The role of the sergeant may differ depending on the

structure and culture of the police department as indicated by Ianni-Reuse (1983), who

identifies two very distinct cultures of policing: management cop and street cop.

Management cop culture focuses on administrative policies and management techniques

to run the department. The management cop identifies with the political, social, and

economic constraints facing the department. The street cop, on the other hand, focuses on

day-to-day interaction with the community and enforcing the law. Street cop culture gets

the job done, without undue concern for the policies and procedures in place to get the

job done. These two cultures have produced two different types of police sergeants, as

identified by Van Maanen (1984): (a) station house sergeants who worked in the office

before they were promoted and preferred to stay in the office after becoming a sergeant,

7
as opposed to (b) street sergeants who worked in the field prior to their promotion,

preferred to stay there after promotion.

Butterfield, Edwards, and Woodall (2005) examined New Public Management

Techniques introduced in the United Kingdom and their impact on police sergeants. This

qualitative study utilized focus groups and in-depth interviews based on an opportunity

sample of senior level inspectors, sergeants, and constables. The study found that the new

public management techniques expanded the job of police sergeants to encompass more

managerial responsibilities. Under the new regime, police sergeants were responsible for

planning work assignments, managing finances, conducting formal appraisals, and

debriefing officers after crime incidents. Sergeants were also responsible for

communicating performance measures to constables and ensuring that those performance

measures were met. The study found, however, that as sergeants spent more time

ensuring that performance goals were met, they spent less time coaching/mentoring the

constables and directly engaging the community Furthermore, as police sergeants

assumed more managerial duties they had little time for the traditional task of patrolling

the streets and providing on-site support to the constables. Mid-level managers indicated

that police sergeants were given little or no training on how to perform these new

managerial duties, which often resulted in increased stress and conflict within the

department. A sergeant’s ability to provide leadership and support to the constables was

limited by the new management technique. Butterfield et al.’s findings are significant

because they illustrate how the role of a police sergeant is constantly changing; in this

fluid environment it is necessary to train and develop leadership among first-line

supervisors.

8
Problem Statement

As police organizations evolve and greater emphasis is placed on alternative

policing methods such as community policing and problem-oriented policing, research

suggests that transformational styles of leadership can strengthen supervisors’ influence

over officers’ behaviors (Engel & Worden, 2003). Research on organizational change in

policing has maintained that first-line supervisors are important to the implementation of

new policies. Engel and Worden (2003) found that past failures of particular strategies

and structural changes were due in part to lack of support among patrol supervisors.

Scholars recognize the important role that first-line supervisors play in law enforcement.

Engel and Worden (2003) report that first-line supervisors communicate new

expectations to officers and ensure that officers meet those expectations on the street.

They also facilitate implementation, provide organizational support and exhort officers to

embrace the philosophy of new policies such as community policing. Overall, however,

the literature on police supervision is limited in scope. It fails to address conceptual and

empirical questions regarding first-line supervisors.

Theoretical Rationale

Two perspectives are used to approach the essential research questions and are

rooted in human resource development and transformational leadership. These two

approaches allowed the researcher to marry two major areas of interest and ones

highlighted in the literature as being deficient in police work.

Human resource development. Human resource development,(HRD) as defined

by Swanson and Holton (2009) as

9
 a process of developing and unleashing expertise for the purpose of improving

organizational system, work process, team, and individual performance. HRD

efforts in organizations often take place under additional banners of training and

development, organizational learning, career management, and leadership

development. (p. 4)

Furthermore, HRD and its two primary components: training and development and

organizational development seek to engage the work environment through five distinct

phases: analysis, proposal, creation, implementation, and assessment. These phases also

exist for the two main components of HRD with slight variations. This model helped the

researcher in answering the question regarding leadership development, specifically how

sergeants confronted challenges while transitioning to a supervisory position. Swanson

and Holton (2009) proposed modified phases similar to the one presented for HRD. This

study focused on the first phase of HRD by attempting to assess the leadership

competencies of police sergeants and evaluate how the police department developed the

leadership competencies of their first-line supervisors. It is worth noting that HRD

practitioners lament the lack of attention paid to the analysis phase. By concentrating on

it, the researcher addressed a key weakness within the practice of HRD. From the

beginning of time, HRD has been a necessary tool to ensure that the skills needed to

survive are passed on to the next generation. Today the need for HRD, particularly in law

enforcement organizations, is evident based on the complexity of the work environment

and the diversity of the workforce.

Transformational leadership. It is clear that throughout human history that

leadership, formal and informal, has been the glue that allows for the survival of the

10
species as well as the development of modern society. By virtue of the socialization

process, which tends to be long for human beings, leadership is engraved into our being

early and for an extended period of time. Our first contact with leadership is through our

experiences with our parents, and subsequently, friends, and teachers. The study of

leadership is complicated by the fact that there is no agreed-upon definition of leadership.

It is compounded by the many definitions of leadership and the fact that they vary

significantly from one theorist to the next. The field of leadership continues to grow from

its early incarnations, found in the Instruction of Ptahhotep (fl. 2300 B.C.E.), to the

concept of transformational leadership first proposed by Downton (1973) and expanded

by Burns (1978), and Bass (1985), who proposed that both transformational and

transactional leadership were interrelated.

Bass’s full-range leadership model is divided into four transformational elements:

three transactional elements and one laissez faire. The four transformational elements are

idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized

consideration. Idealized influence relies on the ability to communicate in a charismatic

fashion the organization’s vision. The leader is driven by his ethical compass and places

the overall good of the organization over his own interest. The leader provides a safe

environment for the followers to perform in and demonstrate alignment in actions and

thoughts. Inspirational motivation connects the leader to the follower by ensuring that

interest is maintained. The leader communicates a high level of enthusiasm and

articulates a vision that followers can rally around. Intellectual stimulation is ensuring

that staff members are fully engaged in problem solving, framing, reframing, and

innovating. Individualized consideration is the process of paying due attention to one’s

11
follower, where their personal well-being matters as much as their professional well-

being. The leader serves as a coach and allows for followers to engage in developmental

tasks aligned with the followers’ dreams. The three transactional elements are contingent

reward, management by exception active, and management by exception passive.

Contingent reward is the exchange process between leader and follower where the

delivery of service is rewarded through predetermined reinforcers. Management by

exception active is the process in which the leader actively monitors performance to

identify errors and provide correction and immediate feedback. Management by

exception passive occurs when errors come to the attention of the leader who in turns

uses it as a mean of providing oversight and guidance. Finally, the laissez faire approach

is non-directive oversight where the leader leaves it up to the follower to self-manage and

provides no supervision.

Bass developed an instrument widely used to measure one’s leadership style. The

instrument is called the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) and is deemed

valid and reliable. There are a number of tools to measure leadership which include but

not limited to the MLQ, The Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI), the Managerial

Practices Survey (MPS), the Leader Behavior Questionnaire (LBQ) and the

Transformational Leadership Inventory (TLI).

Statement of Purpose

The purpose of this case study was to examine the leadership behaviors of first

line supervisors and the extent to which they practice the tenants of transformational

leadership in addition to gaining a better understanding of leadership development

practice in this particular police department.

12
Research Questions

This study examined a specific leadership framework known as the full range

leadership model, which consists of transformational, transactional, and laissez-faire

leadership styles. The researcher investigated the leadership styles of sergeants in a police

department, as well as sergeants’ perceptions of the extent to which they practice the

tenets of transformational leadership. The following research questions guided the

inquiry:

1. What are the self-reported and observed leadership styles and practices of

police sergeants at the Echo Bay police department?

2. To what extent do police sergeants practice the tenants of transformational

leadership?

3. How do police departments develop the leadership competencies of their

police sergeants?

4. What are the perceived challenges faced by police sergeants as they transition

from police officer to first line supervisor?

Significance of the Study

Serious concerns over generalized liability, public safety, and civil rights

violations are examples of risk areas that are evident in the current news cycle and which

would accelerate if police sergeant’s leadership needs are not addressed. In light of the

budgetary constraints and the difficult financial climate, resources need to be

appropriated effectively so as to increase positive outcome. This study with its emphasis

on the analysis component of Swanson and Holton’s (2009) five-phase model would

allow this department to appropriate scarce resources in the right area, based on an

13
evaluation as opposed to the feeling and thoughts of the higher command of the police

department. A more targeted approach to HRD is often better than a diffuse one. Trottier,

Van Wart, and Wang (2008b) call for follow-up studies to investigate longitudinal trends,

broad-scale examination of the nature and effects of leadership in state and local

governments, and studies that focus on some of the major situational aspects of

leadership (hierarchy, organizational type, degree of organizational stress, gender,

culture) in public settings. Improving government performance and accountability to

citizens by empowering employees, that is, by reducing rules, increasing discretion, and

rewarding innovation requires leadership (Sanger, 2008). Researchers have documented

the fact that limited empirical research on the relationships between career development,

leadership development, and leadership behaviors exists in the field (Engel, 2001; Engel

& Worden, 2008, Murphy, 2006; Murphy & Drodge, 2004).

Even with the restrictions of a civil service system, the private sector, and in some

cases, the nonprofit sector, has accelerated the use of technology, introduced new

operating systems and created positive levels of return on investment in training. Police

departments have historically been slow to adapt new technologies and change standard

operating procedures. Resistance to change is due in part to the tenure of the work force,

which is much less transient than that of the private sector. The benefits of civil service

are magnified by tenure, particularly in terms of retirement and pension; however,

opportunities for advancement are limited for civil servants.

In the private sector, merit is the driver and primary criterion for promotion. The

employee is incentivized through bonus payments and promotion based on the success of

specific deliverables. An increased number of arrests and convictions may heighten a

14
police officer’s standing within the department, yet, performance alone does not increase

the probability of promotion to sergeant. According to the New York State Police

Standards, this process is preordained and includes an assessment of years of experience

and the officer’s score on a standardized test given by the New York State Department of

Civil Service.

Managing human resources in a civil service organization has become more

pressing because it constitutes an enormous cost to the taxpayers. Keeping costs down

while effectively deploying the human assets necessary to ensure the safety of citizenry

requires that human resources management be discharged with an eye for effectiveness

and efficiency. Yet, within civil service, such a mission remains an ideal that is seldom

achieved. As cited above, studies indicate that efficiencies result when the best practices

in leadership development as reported by Bass & Bass (2008) are applied.

This study contributes to the literature by presenting empirical evidence for

leadership development in law enforcement. Law enforcement executives recognize the

need to develop their human resource capital. Furthermore, research shows that one of

the primary responsibilities of police middle managers is to prepare newly appointed

sergeants for the transition to a supervisory role (Baker, 2006; Johnson, 2005). Law

enforcement executives also understand the important role that first-line supervisors play

in implementing their vision; however, few departments have developed leadership

training for first-line supervisors. In most police departments, lieutenants and sergeants

are the principal leaders of line officers but few receive training to help them carry out

such development and supervisory responsibilities (Isenberg, 2010). According to Engel

(2001), “the study of patrol supervision might be better captured by some type of

15
modified ethnographic research design where detailed information about the actual

patterns of supervisory practices can be collected” (p. 352). Engel further notes that

previous studies have focused on lower ranking officers’ perceptions of their supervisors’

effectiveness, to the exclusion of supervisors’ perceptions of themselves, which may limit

the validity of the study.

Leadership studies have focused on leadership practices of high ranking officers

in a police department or other paramilitary organizations and on subordinates’

perceptions of their supervisors (Engel, 2001; Murphy & Drodge, 2004; Steinheider &

Wuestewald, 2008). Few studies have been conducted to examine the leadership

competencies and behaviors of first-line supervisors in a police department.

Definitions of Terms

360 Feedback—a survey and/or interview process designed to obtain feedback

from those who work and interact with an individual on a regular basis. Typically,

feedback is obtained from the individual’s managers, peers, direct reports, and internal or

external customers (Gay and Sims, 2006).

Community Policing—A philosophy that promotes organizational strategies,

which support the systematic use of partnerships and problem-solving techniques, to

proactively address the immediate conditions that give rise to public safety issues such as

crime, social disorder, and fear of crime. Community policing is comprised of four key

components: (a) Community partnerships which involves collaborative partnerships

between the law enforcement agency and the individuals and organizations they serve to

develop solutions to problems and increase trust in police, (b) organizational

transformation which is the alignment of organizational management, structure,

16
personnel, and information systems to support community partnerships and proactive

problem solving, (c) agency management which includes personnel, technology and

geographic assignment of officers, and (d) problem solving which is the process of

engaging in the proactive and systematic examination of identified problems to develop

and rigorously evaluate effective responses (U.S. Department of Justice, n.d.).

Exempt Class—The exempt class is defined in the Civil Service Law to

specifically include one secretary of each department, temporary state commission or

other State officer authorized by law to appoint a secretary, deputies of principal

executive officers authorized by law to act generally for and in place of their principals,

and certain court clerks (New York State Department of Civil Service, §41/CSR §2.1).

New York State Department of Civil Service—is the central personnel agency for

New York State. In addition to other duties, the department partners with state agencies

and the New York State Personnel Council to offer personnel recruitment and placement

services, including developing minimum job qualifications, classifying positions, salary

level determinations, developing examinations and administering performance

assessment tests (New York State Department of Civil Service, 2006).

Non Competitive Class—consists of those positions for which it is not practicable

to conduct examinations on a competitive basis. Appointments non-competitive positions

are to be made after a non-competitive examination, such as a review of training and

experience, as prescribed by the department of civil service (New York State Department

of Civil Service, 2011).

Problem Oriented Policing—An approach to policing in which discrete pieces of

police business are subject to microscopic examination (drawing on the especially honed

17
skills of crime analysts and the accumulated experience of operating field personnel) in

hopes that what is freshly learned about each problem will lead to discovering a new and

more effective strategy for dealing with it. Problem-oriented policing carries a

commitment to implementing the new strategy, rigorously evaluating its effectiveness,

and, subsequently, reporting the results in ways that will benefit other police agencies and

that will ultimately contribute to building a body of knowledge that supports the further

professionalization of the police (Center for Problem Oriented Policing, 2011).

Succession Management—succession management includes succession planning

as well as all continuous actions and processes throughout the year regarding the

development of successors. Successions management also involves looking ahead at the

leadership competencies and positions that will be needed for the organization’s future

success, rather than only looking at replacement needs (Gay and Sims, 2006).

Chapter Summary

The challenges of 21st century are taking many forms as population growth,

concentration of communities, increased in conflicts, downturn in economic activity as

well as the changing nature of crime and perpetrators. As noted earlier, the criminal

element has gotten younger, is including women, and the types of crimes vary greatly

from years past. No longer is the bank robber using a mask and entering a bank

brandishing a gun. A computer-savvy opportunist is now stealing peoples’ identities and

depleting their accounts. Banks’ well-protected data systems are being compromised by

people situated physically far away, the rise in white-collar crime is at an all-time high.

This shift requires that policing be effected differently, starting with the academy where

the .38 revolver is no longer and the 9mm reigns supreme, where police chases are aided

18
with technology, computer mapping of crime is standard. In most cities weapons

screening technology is catching the most elusive criminal or would be terrorist, and

video technology has an eye on entire cities such as London and New York. Yet, the need

for a police officer to have leadership skills such as judgment, discretion, intelligence and

to have skills beyond the technical ability to shoot a gun and use a weapon screening

device has become more pressing in this post-9/11 environment. In light of the economic

downturn, it is expected that crime will rise and that budgetary constraints will force

police department to engage in workforce reduction. From an HRD perspective it is clear

that Swanson and Holton (2009) and Bass (2008) provide a solid framework that would

allow a sensible approach to answering the key essential questions. Answering the HRD

and LD questions through these lenses make conceptual and practical sense. Policing

require that police organizations become more proactive than reactive. Therefore, the

ability of police organizations to adapt to new technologies, programs and strategies is

critical. The literature suggests that successful police departments recognize that

leadership exists at all levels of the organization and that the organization has a

responsibility for developing the leadership competencies of their officers. The next

section will examine the literature on leadership development as it relates to public sector

organizations (macro-level) to police departments (micro-level). The remaining chapters

present the review of literature, with attention to HRD, leadership development, and

transformational leadership in the context of policing (Chapter 2); the research design

methodology (Chapter 3); the results of the research questions (Chapter 4); and a

discussion of implications, delimitations, recommendations, and conclusions (Chapter 5).

19
 Chapter 2: Review of the Literature

Introduction and Purpose

This study sought to understand how leadership competencies among first-line

supervisors are developed within a civil service personnel system. Although the literature

has examined leadership in the public sector in general, this study examined leadership

within a law enforcement environment in particular. The literature supports the fact that

leadership can be found at all levels of an organization (Baker, 2006; Isenberg, 2010;

Kouzes & Posner, 2007). This study provides an in-depth look at the perceptions of first-

line supervisors with respect to their leadership practices and their professional/leadership

development within the organization. To what extent are first-line supervisors being

prepared to meet the emerging demands of 21st-century law enforcement? What

challenges do first-line supervisor face when they transitioned from police officer to

sergeant?

The literature review examines the concepts of transformational leadership and

leadership development as a form of HRD within a public sector organization,

specifically, policing. This research examines the self-perception of first-line supervisors

regarding their leadership style/behaviors and the extent to which the police sergeants

practice the tenets of transformational leadership. To that end the literature review in

Chapter 2 is divided into sections that focus on three concepts: human resource

development, leadership development, and transformational leadership. In practice, and

20
in the relation of the concepts, there is much interplay and overlap, which is reflected in

the narrative of the literature review.

Human Resource Development

The field of HRD is new, although its practices have been well established.

Professional opinion presently divides the field into two parts: (a) organizational

development and (b) training and development. Training and development emphasizes

individual employees and the extent to which they support the organization’s mission.

Training and development, rather than organizational development, then, is the lens

though which this researcher evaluated a midsize police department on how it developed

the leadership competencies of their first-line supervisors.

Contemporary thoughts on human resource development. HRD begins with

the idea that one must be trained in order to competently accomplish predetermined

goals. Swanson and Holton (2009) trace the development of the concept from Paul

Monroe’s (1907) examination of the apprenticeship model to Watkins and Marsik’s

(1989) investigations into the processes of long-term learning capacity and adaptability.

Currently Swanson and Holton (2009) characterize HRD as a process to improve

performance at the individual, team, and organizational level. Experts in the field agree

that the importance of the mission, the complexity of the tasks, and the wide range of

responsibilities in the context of a police department make it critical to maintain and

improve the workforce. The history of HRD dates back to 600 B.C., but as we think

about 20th century America, we must note the work of Fredrick Taylor on scientific

management, Dale Carnegie’s treatise on influence and marketing, Channing Dooley’s

work (considered the catalyst to the professionalization of HRD), Peter Drucker’s

21
(considered the father of nonprofit management) work, Fredrick Hertzberg’s well-read

work on motivation, Douglas McGregor’s dispassionate publication of The Human

Enterprise, Peter Senge’s Fifth Discipline, and Chris Agyris’ On Organizational

Learning. As a professional field, HRD is in its infancy and borrows heavily on more

established areas, such as organization behavior, psychology, and management. In recent

years there has been a movement to treat HRD as an independent model with its own

theoretical framework. Critical contributors include Becker (work on human capital

theory), Nadler (foundation of HRD), Flanagan (critical incident technique), and

Swanson (research in leadership) in the HRD profession. Modern HRD has transformed

over the past 45 years. Over this period, the term has been redefined and no universal

definition can be found although Swanson is the most recent accepted reiteration. The

term went from emphasizing increasing knowledge and capacity to organized learning

and experience to learning to unleashing expertise. A number of forces from

globalization to changing economics and the nature of the workforce have facilitated as

well as complicated the development of HRD. The change from an industrial economy to

service economy, the advent of technology, the very nature of work in the 21st century

both from a competitive and cooperative standpoint, and the entry of women in the

workforce have all forced the field to remain flexible while remaining efficient. As a

result the field has remained primarily based in the principles of economics, systems, and

psychology. Swanson and Holton (2009) highlight core components such as expertise

development and performance improvement. Swanson and Holton detail the mechanism

through which both expertise and performance improvement occurs by taking a

systematic view of key processes and the way they interrelate. It is clear in his writing

22
that training, education, and expertise development are distinct activities that can all

contribute to increased performance. The field of HRD is often thought of as a set of

common sense activities to ensure that positions are filled with trained employees. This

narrow understanding is the hallmark of a poor organization. Putting HRD to work in the

context of problems and solutions is the best strategy to achieve a dynamic, flexible, and

responsive organization, especially for a police organization dedicated to emergency

response. Solutions that address the main challenges, as opposed to the symptomatic

issues, require a nuanced understanding of continuous improvement, not simply common

sense. Continuous improvement demands a carefully drafted plan with the commitment

of all major stakeholders, clear goals, and a willingness to integrate on-going learning

into the process. Swanson (1997) has described the field of HRD as a “theory application

deficit disorder.” The practice of HRD is informed by a number of theoretical models

and as a discipline it must develop its own models as it matures and takes its rightful

place among other professional disciplines.

When practiced correctly, HRD focuses on problem solving. The discipline

assumes that there is a gap between the current state and a desirable state of affairs. HRD

is the process through which one accomplishes that desirable state.

White and Escobar (2008) suggest that recruitment, selection, and training of the

workforce are critically important to create the foundation of a professional and effective

police department. Law enforcement agencies are facing new challenges in the twenty-

first century such as (a) counter-terrorism, (b) technology, (c) multicultural/diversity

training, and (d) community and problem-oriented policing (White & Escobar, 2008).

These challenges require that police officers develop leadership competencies as well as

23
technical skills. Steinheider and Wuestewald (2008) report that the focus in policing has

shifted from leadership at the top to leadership at the bottom, where the discretionary

activities of front line officers can make a real difference in terms of community

engagement, crime prevention, and law enforcement.

Talent management. Talent management is a subset of human resource

management and is process driven. While not a theory, it is a set of activities that

organizations should engage in to ensure that new challenges are met with competent and

expert staffers. This trend is commonly observed in sports team with their farm system

and organization such as GE, Microsoft and Apple well known for paying attention to

talent development. Talent management is an organization’s attempt to manage its human

capital beginning with talent assessment, which in a police department is equivalent to

the annual performance evaluation. This talent review tends to be cursory. Efforts at

development tend to be ineffective as they do not lead to discretionary promotional

opportunities. Succession planning is almost nonexistent in police departments because

promotion in a civil service system is driven by a test. Perhaps leadership development

can counteract the talent mismanagement of a civil service system. Talent management is

the process by which organizations develop their workforce for the future. Employee

training has a long history of ensuring an organization has a skilled, motivated, and

competent workforce (Frank, & Taylor, 2004). Some components of talent management

include: (a) identification and screening of potential employees (recruiting for talent), (b)

training and developing talent, (c) treating talent fairly, and (d) retaining talent. Another

important component of a talent management program is leadership development. Gay

and Sims (2006) identify four leadership development actions which are associated with

24
the talent management process. The action steps are: (a) talent assessment, (b) talent

review, (c) succession planning, and (d) identification of high potentials.

Negative aspects of talent management. In contrast, critics of talent management

programs argue that talent management programs have a negative impact on

organizations and create more problems than they solve. Since the idea of talent

management is to attract and develop high performing employees, the process to identify

these high performing stars may have a negative impact on the organization. Talent

management programs have a tendency to (a) place overemphasis on the individual and

under emphasis on the teams, (b) glorify outsiders (c) create a self-fulfilling prophecy,

and (d) ignore the systemic cultural problems that affect performance (Pfeffer, 2001).

Leadership Development

Research shows that managers in the police force play a key role in the adoption

of any organizational change effort like the transition to community policing (Kelling &

Bratton, 1993. This work placed special emphasis on the need for supervisors and

managers to understand the reason for the policy, the importance of first-line supervisors’

buy-in, its effect in overall implementation, and ultimate success. The managers’

organizational roles make them the critical actors in the implementation of new policies

and procedures required for the adoption of community policing (Vito, Walsh, &

Kunselman, 2005). The successful implementation of policy often relates to the extent to

which first-line supervisors participated in the policy development and understood it and

were trained in its execution. As change is often resisted by those who are most

impacted, first-line supervisors found themselves in a lead position to implement new

policies and strategies, however, they are seldom involved in the development of the

25
policies, Walsh and Kunselman (2005) found that managers within the police department

perceived community policing as a threat to their job security which, therefore, added to

their resistance to it. In fact, they attributed the obstacles to the implementation of

community policing to (a) establishing and maintaining community involvement, (b) lack

of definition to what community policing was, (c) organizational structure, (d)

specialized units, and (e) failure of leadership.

The Bureau of Justice Assistance (2008), therefore, promotes a culture of

leadership in police departments. The bureau points out that creating a culture of

leadership is a process of education and training, modeling appropriate behavior by

current leaders, mentoring, and coaching.

According to the Bureau of Justice Assistance (2008), training law enforcement

officers is a serious responsibility that continues throughout an officer’s career.

Developing leadership skills is at the foundation of nurturing a quality law enforcement

officer and a quality agency. As reported by Murphy and Drodge (2004) training for

transformational leadership is beneficial. This type of training yields: (a) improved

perceptions of transformational leadership qualities among subordinates, (b) enhanced

commitment to the organization and (c) increased performance among followers due to

transformational leadership training (Murphy & Drodge, 2004).

Leadership development in the public sector. Leadership development in the

public sector has been difficult as the emphasis has often been the technical skills to get

the job done, Government leaders are usually tapped from the private sector and

nonprofit, particularly academia. This creates gaps in service delivery because

institutional knowledge from the rank and file is lost as civil service employees retire and

26
move to other jobs. Many positions are filled with political appointees whose direct

knowledge and experience are not easily transferable to the public sector. For the most

part, leadership development in the public sector occurs at the higher level, where top

people self-select to attend conferences and opportunities for tuition reimbursement are

anemic at best. Emphasis on expertise and efficiency have not always been government’s

forte. There are few exceptions; both the Internal Revenue Service at the federal level and

the Department of Motor Vehicles at the state level are two very good examples of

government efficiency through the use of technology. On the other hand, the United

Postal Service continues to lose market share, prompting the recent announcement of

massive layoffs of postal workers. Without leadership development of public sector

organizations, there is a risk associated with providing services for which there is no

economic value in an effective manner. While we have seen the outsourcing of our

correction systems, the privatization of our mental health operations, and the

subcontracting of our defense work, this is not the answer. Bass’ work is a standard

bearer both in leadership development and transformational leadership. His consultation

and research across government, for profit and nonprofit organizations, indicates not only

the need for leadership development, but the criticality of such if organizations are to not

only survive but strive to excel His research revealed the degree to which the workplace

can be transformed with leadership that inspires and stimulates ideas and influence. The

study of leadership in the public sector is becoming increasingly important as

governments are facing demands from their citizenry that dictate responsiveness and the

need to adapt to change. The President’s Management Agenda (Executive Office of the

President, Office of Management and Budget, 2002) under President George W. Bush

27
underlined the recommendation that government agencies “build, sustain and effectively

deploy the skilled, knowledgeable, diverse, and high-performing work force needed to

meet the current and emerging needs of government and its citizens” (p. 14). This is

particularly true of police departments as they confront a number of 21st-century

challenges: increased crime rates, succession planning pressures, risk management

demands, economic concerns, complex technology, the development of positive

community relations, litigation prevention, and the problem of retention in the context of

a restricted, unionized civil service system. One way of addressing this issue is through

talent management, which is the process of developing leaders that are capable of taking

appropriate preventive and proactive actions in highly stressful and volatile situations.

Leadership development in general. This section of the literature review

discusses the topic of leadership development in general and in the context of policing. It

will also highlight current practices as well as barriers to leadership development.

The extant literature on leadership development has focused predominately on

research in the private sector; however, the lessons learned are applicable to the

public/law enforcement sector as well. There are different approaches and components to

leadership development. In Bass & Bass’ Handbook on Leadership (2008) the best

practices in leadership development are identified. According to Bass & Bass:

The best practices in developing leaders take place when (1) leadership

development has been aligned with corporate strategy; (2) leadership

development has mixed educational and business interests; (3) the particular

competencies and characteristics of successful leaders in their own organization

have been defined; (4) development of leaders is emphasized, rather than

28
 recruitment from outside; (5) action learning and real-time business issues are the

basis of leadership development; (6) leadership development is linked to

succession planning; (7) leadership development is supported by top management

throughout the success of the effort and (8) evaluations of the leadership

development effort, from quantitative to anecdotal. (p. 1051)

Bass & Riggio (2006) further explain the difference between leader development

and leadership development: “Leader development focuses on the enhancement of the

individual leader, whereas leadership development looks at how the leaders and

followers—the group or organization as a whole—can develop shared capacity” (p. 142).

Core leadership competencies such as the following can be learned: (a) critical evaluation

and problem detection, (b) envisioning, (c) communication skills for conveying a vision,

(d) impression management, and (e) how and when to empower followers (Bass &

Riggio, 2006).

Van Wart (2003) posits that leaders depend on followers to do the work, therefore

the continued development of followers and their overall satisfaction are critical to

production and organizational effectiveness. A major stumbling block for most leaders is

that they lack the critical skills for dealing with difficult people and/or lack interpersonal

competencies (Van Wart, 2003). The next section examines research that focused on

leadership development in public and private sector organizations.

Brundrett, Rhodes, and Gkolia (2006) conducted a study that examined the

barriers and strengths associated with the practice of talent management, succession

planning, and leadership development in education. The qualitative study used

questionnaires, focus groups and semi-structured interviews. Out of a sample of 70

29
schools 9 participated in the study. The findings revealed that respondents engaged in

staff development that helped establish supportive relationships that assisted in their own

professional development. Respondents also reported a strong commitment to structures

that encouraged or required staff to take on an active leadership role. Further, respondents

indicated that the leadership development program developed the organizational culture

by including work-shadowing as well as pairing workers with critical friends or peer

coaching.

Espedal (2004) conducted a study that examined the efficacy of management

leadership development (MLD). This qualitative study sought to identify gaps between

theory and practice. The study highlights the value of MLD on the individual level which

develops the skills connected to formal managerial roles. It also focuses on individuals’

knowledge, skills, and abilities such as self-awareness, self-regulation, self-motivation,

social awareness, and social skills. At the organizational level MLD can help institutions

develop teams and facilitate networking opportunities among workers. The respondents

reported that MLD expanded their capacity to engage effectively into management and

leadership roles and processes. Respondents reported that MLD programs helped to build

mentor relationship among leaders that enhanced trust, communication, collaboration,

integration of ideas, resource exchange, and commitment.

The respondents of the study offered the following criticism of leadership

development program. First, MLD programs are not consistent with business strategy.

Organizations fail to link MLD initiative across organizational level. The leadership

qualities that are the focus of leadership development programs are very hard to link

directly with organizational outcome. Respondents also reported that organizations have

30
a tendency to focus their management and leadership development interventions on

historical issues, failing to acknowledge internal and external demands. As a result,

organizations also fail to revised practices to address changes and new challenges.

Finally, it was reported that MLD interventions have the potential to lock managers into

inflexible patterns of actions which prevent the combination of old and new ideas to

emerge and shape future practice.

Leadership development in police organizations. The discourse on how to

develop a dynamic and professional police workforce through leadership development

dates back to the 1930s in America. August Vollmer, known as the father of modern

policing, was the first police chief to require that police officers attain a college degree.

He was instrumental in establishing the first criminal justice program at the University of

California. He also created the first motorized police force in order to patrol a larger

geographical area. In 1939 Vollmer described the characteristics of an ideal police

officer:

The citizen expects police officers to have the wisdom of Solomon, the courage of

David, the strength of Samson, the patience of Job, the leadership of Moses, the

kindness of the Good Samaritan, the strategic training of Alexander, the faith of

Daniel, the diplomacy of Lincoln, the tolerance of the Carpenter of Nazareth, and

finally, and intimate knowledge of every branch of the natural, biological, and

social sciences. If he had all these, he might be a good policeman! (as cited in

Bain, 1939, p. 454)

Bass’s full range leadership model captures the characteristics of Vollmer’s ideal

policeman. Bass submits that the transformational leader must be able to master any

31
human interaction. In fact, he believes being a good transactional leader is a prerequisite

for being a transformational leader. Vollmer’s description of the ideal police officer

speaks to abilities and capacities that are similar to those of a transformational leader.

The literature of transformational leadership gives varying degrees of emphasis on

different competencies (Bass & Avolio, 1990; Kouzes & Posner, 2007; Northouse,

2007;); however, Vollmer’s descriptions appear neatly paired with Bass’ competencies:

(a) Vollmer’s wisdom of Solomon and strategic training of Alexander are similar to Bass’

intellectual stimulation, whereby the leader encourages and supports followers to develop

innovative and creative ways to problem solve; (b) The strength of Samson can be linked

to management by exception, whereby the leader provides corrective criticism, negative

feedback, and reinforcement; (c) The leadership of Moses, courage of David, and faith of

Daniel are parallel to inspirational motivation, whereby the leader uses symbols and

emotional appeal to motivate followers to accomplish more than they could as

individuals; (d) The kindness of the Good Samaritan and patience of Job are similar to

individualized consideration, whereby the leader acts as a coach and helps followers to

become fully actualized and/or empowered; and (e) The diplomacy of Lincoln is

equivalent to employing the contingent reward, which focuses on the exchange between

leader and follower. This researcher holds that organizations that practice the tenets of

talent management with an emphasis on leadership development can produce the desired

characteristics of the ideal policeman as described by Vollmer and Bass.

Murphy (2006) conducted a study that investigated the perceived efficacy of an

executive development program and found that the perspectives of the police officer were

negative. Murphy’s research evaluated one police department’s succession planning

32
process and their executive development program with a qualitative study. The study

examined the motivation of executive officers who participated in the program as well as

their perceptions of the program. Murphy used surveys and interviews as the data

collection tools. The surveys (N = 719) yielded a 73% response rate and 26% of the

sample provided the researcher with additional qualitative information about their major

concerns regarding executive development. The study findings revealed that police

officers lacked confidence in the selection criteria and had concerns that the best officers

were not being chosen for the program. Another major concern was that the standardized

test was the only method used to evaluate an applicant’s potential for the program. The

program lacked an emphasis on professional development: Training participants did not

receive coaching, mentoring, training, or meaningful feedback.

The emerging literature on police leadership provides anecdotal information or

descriptive profiles of executive-level law enforcement personnel based on their

leadership characteristics (Haberfeld, 2006; Schafer, 2009). Police officers are trained in

technical skills, special tactics, and various other subject areas; however, leadership

courses appear to be reserved for executive leaders: such as captains, chiefs, and majors.

Police departments are governed by the civil service personnel system which was

created to promote fairness in hiring practices and to protect employees from political

influences. This type of organizational structure, however, is often considered a major

barrier to leadership development due to the processes used to select future leaders.

Police officers must pass a series of promotional exams to reach the upper echelon of the

organization. The first exam for an entry-level supervisory position is the sergeant’s

exam. Eligibility for promotion to police sergeant in New York State is restricted to 1st

33
Grade Police Officers, that is, police officers who have a minimum of four years of

continuous permanent service on a police force and a passing grade on the sergeant’s

exam. The promotional exam, which is developed by the New York State Department of

Civil Service, focuses on fourteen subject areas: (a) law enforcement methods and

practices, (b) New York State Law, (c) preparing written material in a police setting, (d)

understanding and interpreting written material, (e) evaluating information and evidence,

(f) investigative techniques and criminalistics,(g) supervision, (h) assigning and

reviewing work, (i) evaluating performance, (j) maintaining work standards, (k)

motivating and developing subordinates, (l) implementing procedural changes, (m)

increasing efficiency and (n) dealing with problems of absenteeism, morale, and

discipline. There have been other studies that examined the importance of leadership

development in policing.

Schafer (2009) suggests that “the absence of quality leaders in policing is, in part,

due to a common failure to develop officers to become more effective leaders” (p. 241).

Schafer’s qualitative study examined police supervisors’ perceptions of leadership

development opportunities within the police department as well as barriers to those

opportunities. The study surveyed 1,097 officers attending a 10-week training course at

the FBI National Academy. A 70% return rate resulted in the following findings:

1. Most officers believed that leadership competencies could be taught and police

officers could be leaders regardless of their rank and position in the organization.

2. Leadership development activities needed to include education, training, and

on-the-job learning experience.

34
 3. Most police executives failed to create a supportive environment that cultivated

leadership development.

4. Supervisors stressed the importance of timely leadership training, because the

standard training for supervisors was inadequate.

Participants reported that police leaders should provide all officers with leadership

education and experiences so that officers would have a stronger skill set to guide them

up the career ladder. Also noted in the study were gaps in training. Police supervisors

were in their positions for years before they received leadership development training.

Bad behaviors were already ingrained. Lastly, budgetary constraints were identified as

barriers to implement and maintain leadership development programs in police

departments.

The research conducted by Schafer (2009) is significant for the present study

because it identifies various structural, cultural, and external barriers that limit effective

leadership practices and leadership development in police departments. According to

Baker (2008), police training is one of the most effective of management’s functions. The

literature suggests that leadership development strengthens an organization’s human

resources capacity and is essential in the enhancement of employee performance,

improved morale, and increased motivation. Training is also crucial to supporting the

mission of the organization. Some police departments have made attempts to develop

leaders by implementing specialized programs and/or training.

Parry and Sinha (2005) conducted a study that examined the impact of

transformational leadership on organizational performance and leadership behaviors. This

study utilized a quasi-experimental approach to test the impact of leadership training

35
upon seven groups consisting of private and public sector employees. There were 50

participants and 500 raters. Participants attended a two-day Full Range Leadership

Development training program and then were given a 360 Feedback to evaluate if there

was a change in transformational leadership behaviors. The MLQ was used to assess the

frequency with which participants displayed transformational and transactional leadership

behaviors. The findings of the study indicated that: (a) After conducting a Wilcoxon

matched pair signed rank test on both the pretest and posttest, all transformational

leadership factors were displayed more frequently after the training. (b) Transformational

leadership training was effective for public and private sector organizations. (c)

Outcomes of followers’ extra effort and satisfaction with leaders increased after the

leader participated in the training program. As highlighted by the studies above,

leadership development programs that focus on enhancing leadership competencies can

improve employees’ skill sets and strengthen the organization’s human resource capital.

However, there still remain barriers to leadership development in police organizations.

Barriers to leadership development in police organizations: A failure of

human resource development. Saunders (1970) maintains that “historically, law

enforcement training is grossly inadequate, and the level of training fragmented, sporadic

and poorly designed to meet the law enforcement needs of a modern urban society” (p.

3). Research further suggests that the root of the problem in law enforcement is one of

personnel (Phillips & Burrell, 2009). Funding for training is usually limited to new

technology, specialized personnel or departments. Training rarely focuses on the entire

police department or on professional development of the department.

36
 There is an absolute dearth in the area of leadership training and leadership

theories that are applicable to police environments (Haberfeld, 2006). Haberfeld posited

that leadership development should begin when new recruits enter the police force as part

of the Police Academy training curriculum and as part of on-going professional

development training. The training in the Academy, however, does not allocate a

sufficient period of time for the study of leadership. In New York State, for example,

some of the topics covered during basic police officer training are as follows: (a)

Administration of Justice, (b) Introduction of Law Enforcement, (c) Law of New York

State, (d) Law Enforcement Skills, (e) Community Interaction, (f) Mass Casualties and

Major Events, and (g) Investigations (New York State Division of Criminal Justice

Services, 2009).

Upon completing the Basic Police Officers Training, a probationary recruit

spends approximately 10 weeks with a field training officer. The field training officer is

responsible for training the recruit in the field and grading them on core competencies. A

review of New York State’s field training manual reveals that under the section for

interpersonal skills, the field training officer has to grade the new recruit on leadership

competencies; however, the term leadership is not defined or even discussed in the

manual. How are field training officers measuring new recruits’ leadership

competencies? How can police officers be expected to be leaders if they are not taught

how to be leaders?

Transformational Leadership in Policing.

Research confirms that effective leadership is essential to organizational success

(Avolio, 1999; Baker, 2006; Haberfeld, 2006; Kouzes & Posner, 2007; Northouse, 2007).

37
Furthermore, leadership differs from management in that it requires a more sophisticated

level of skill that focuses on influencing others and creating visions for organizational

change and/or effectiveness. The distinction between leadership and management has

been described by Bennis and Nanus (1985) as follows: “Managers are people who do

things right and leaders are people who do the right thing” (p. 221).

Research also indicates that police departments and other paramilitary

organizations led by transformational leaders experience increased productivity,

employee satisfaction, and greater leader satisfaction (Murphy & Drodge, 2004;

Steinheider & Wuestewald, 2008; Yammarino & Bass, 1990). The full range leadership

model is a well-known and reliable evaluation of best practices in leadership

development. The three categorizations of full range leadership model are

transformational, transactional, and laissez-faire leadership styles (Bass & Riggio, 2006).

Transformational leadership motivates the followers to perform for reasons

beyond immediate self-interests through idealized influence, charisma, inspiration,

intellectual stimulation, and/or individualized consideration. Idealized influence and

inspirational leadership are displayed when the leader envisions a desirable future,

articulates how it can be reached, sets an example to be followed, sets high standards of

performance, and shows determination and confidence in executing that vision.

Individualized consideration is displayed when the leader pays careful attention to the

development of the followers. Transformational leaders delegate assignments to

followers as opportunities for growth (Bass, 1999).

Transactional leaders propose an exchange between leaders and followers to meet

their (the followers’) self-interests. This exchange may take the form of contingent

38
reward in which the leader clarifies through direction or participation what followers

need to do to be rewarded for their effort. It may take the form of active management-by-

exception, in which the leader monitors the followers’ performances and takes corrective

action if the followers fail to meet standards. It may take the form of passive leadership,

in which the leader practices passive management-by-exception and waits for problems

to arise before taking corrective action); or it may take the form of laissez-faire, in which

the leader avoids taking any action (Bass, 1999). In law enforcement, management-by-

exception is management by fear which some suggest needs to change. The concept of

management-by-exception is illustrated by the exchange process between the supervisor

and subordinate based on desired behaviors. Supervisors, for example, may use

incentives such as work schedules, overtime, or special details as means to control

behaviors (Johnson, 2008). Management by fear in law enforcement environments results

in short-term goals, no long-term planning, and an atmosphere of fear that destroys

initiative, demolishes teamwork and nourishes rivalry (Alsabrook, Aryani, & Garrett,

2001).

A few studies have examined transformational leadership within the context of a

law enforcement environment or the military. These studies have positively correlated

transformational leadership practices with (a) employee satisfaction, (b) increased

employee morale, (c) increased organizational effectiveness, (d) extra effort, and (e)

followers’ satisfaction with the leader. Singer & Singer (2001) hypothesized that police

departments—traditionally considered mechanical organizations—would exhibit

transactional leadership; however, their study revealed that the police leadership was

more transformational than transactional. The situational constraint of the police

39
environment had an insignificant impact on this study. The significance of Singer and

Singer’s study is that transformational leadership does exist in policing.

Deluga and Souza (1991) conducted a quantitative study to examine the

relationship between supervising officer leadership (downward influence) and the

influencing behavior of subordinate police officers (upward influence). The researchers

used both transformational and transactional leadership as their theoretical framework.

They hypothesized that transactional leadership would be more closely associated with

police officers’ influencing approaches. Researchers collected data through surveys

distributed to 117 police officers with voluntary responses from 53, a 45% response rate.

The study found that subordinates perceived transformational leaders as more

approachable and less military in manner than transactional leaders. The transformational

style of leadership best models the skill set necessary for effective problem-oriented

policing and community policing.

Limitations of human resource development and transactional leadership.

HRD is difficult to evaluate as it over relies on a number of other fields. HR professionals

are concerned with the lack of analysis which results in faulty decision making as well as

the need for HRD to be recognized on its own theoretical merit. While the literature

shows evidence that well executed HRD processes are a cost saver and in fact allows

organization to attract the best and become more efficient, HR is relegated to a second

class status after finance and operations. This is exemplified by the pattern of

promotional activities which usually elevate the chief operating officer and the chief

Fiscal officer to the Chief Executive officer. Transactional leadership offers little

encouragement for followers to exceed and achieve performance goals beyond those for

40
which they contracted (Bass, 1985; Bass & Avolio, 1990). Critics of the full range

leadership model, which includes the transactional leadership style, suggest that further

research is needed to examine other independent variables, such as gender, organizational

culture, and diversity. Northouse (2007) highlights the criticism of transformational

leadership: (a) transformational leadership lacks conceptual clarity because each

characteristic (the “Four I”, idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual

stimulation and individualized consideration) overlaps with each other. (b) research on

transformational leadership stresses the fact that it is the leader that move followers to

achieve great things, however, critics argue that more focus should be placed on shared

leadership and the reciprocal relationship between leaders and followers. There have been

call for further research on how transformational leaders affect followers psychologically

and how leaders respond to follower’s reactions.

Conclusion

HRD, which includes leadership development, is essential for good governance

and allows for smooth succession because line staff are prepared for increased

responsibility through a planned process. The costs associated with hiring the wrong

personnel, lack of training and opportunities and the benefits of having expected

behaviors modeled and staff to be coached are immeasurable. In addition,

transformational leadership is an important tool to address complex issues and as

indicated the landscape for law enforcement has grown more nuanced and textured.

Policing is becoming more technical and more intellectual relying on long term view and

having to respond to society’s growing types of crime. Emphasis on prevention requires a

transformation in thinking and delivery. The old methods are becoming passé. The new

41
forensic and technological methods need to be managed, crime forecasting using complex

algorithms need to be digested and reasoned judgment forced upon them to keep the

citizenry safe. Developing transformational leaders is no longer a luxury but a necessity

that would become more pronounced. Delivering leadership development will

increasingly need to be done effectively and Bass’ (1999) work is a model that has shown

promise. In short, confronting the challenges of the 21st century will require police

departments to engage in effective HRD, specifically leadership development. A well

planned HRD effort that focuses on leadership development has the potential to increase

positive work outcomes and ensure that an organization continues to strive. This is

particularly true for police organizations where the workforce while stable tends to

burnout and access available early retirement incentives. Having a pipeline of officers

ready to continue the fight at a higher level makes sense so as to avoid the syndrome of

the “overnight supervisor” which Haberfeld (2006) speaks of. Leadership development is

a guard against that unintended effect. Transformational leadership is often cited as a

form of leadership that facilitates change and its applications result in a more engaged

workforce and a culture that promotes ethical behavior, Bass is considered the dean of

transformational leadership and his work over six decades until his death in 2008

continue to be recognizing as leading and cutting edge. His classic repository of

leadership knowledge published in 2008 (Bass & Bass) is used around the world

translated in many languages and his contemporary exult his outstanding contribution to

the field of leadership. It is that scholarship and reputation that have this researcher not

only committed to his study and prompted the choice of his theory as the lens through

which this police department will be evaluated using his take on leadership development

42
and leadership style. One recognizes that Downton (1973) as the original author of the

leadership concept must be given his dues as he processed the concept in the context of

political leaders as does Burns (1978); however Bass has supplemented their work and

lent his intellect to moving it forward. While others such as Kouzes and Posner (2007)

have joined the transformational conversation, such would be incomplete without Bass at

the center. Both HRD and transformational leadership have their detractors. The former is

said to be nonscientific to be relied on while the other is often criticized for lack of

clarity. Chapter 3 described the methodology through which the researcher answered four

essential questions and was organized around a general perspective to set the stage, the

research context, the types of participants, type of study, the selection process, the

instrumentation, and the methods for data analysis.

43
 Chapter 3: Research Design Methodology

General Perspective

Today police organizations are identifying new and innovative ways of

facilitating the development and career progress of talented and skilled individuals in the

organization. According to the Bureau of Justice Assistance (2008), today’s law

enforcement officers must possess the leadership skills, capacity, and courage for

effective operation. Law enforcement agencies are formalizing the procedures, policies,

and processes necessary to develop employees and leaders for the future of the

organization. As police organizations evolve and greater emphasis is placed on

alternative policing methods such as community policing and problem-oriented policing,

research suggests that transformational styles of leadership can strengthen supervisors’

influence over officers’ behaviors (Engel & Worden, 2003). Research on organizational

change in policing has maintained that first-line supervisors are important to the

implementation of new policies. Engel and Worden (2003) cite several studies that found

that past failures of particular strategies and structural changes were due in part to lack of

support among patrol supervisors. Scholars recognize the important role that first-line

supervisors play in law enforcement. First-line supervisors communicate new

expectations to officers and ensure that officers meet those expectations while on duty.

They also facilitate implementation, provide organizational support and exhort officers to

embrace the philosophy of new policies such as community policing. Overall, however,

the literature on police supervision is limited in scope. It fails to address conceptual and

44
empirical questions regarding first-line supervisors. This study evaluated the HRD

practices of a police department, an organization under increasing pressure to attain a

desirable state in a high risk environment. Police departments are a good natural

laboratory to study the core adult learning principles set forth by Knowles (2005), the

father of adult learning or andragogy. Knowles’ learning principles include the learner’s

(a) need to know, (b) self-concept, (c) prior experience, (d) readiness to learn, (e)

orientation to learning, and (f) motivation to learn. Using in-depth interviews, the

researcher determined if the adult learner, in this case the police sergeant, were engaged

in a learning environment that was conducive to the production of a competent leader. Is

leadership development a part of the training curriculum? If so, does it follow a best

practices model for leadership development? The study assessed the self-perception of

police sergeants in terms of the full range leadership model.

This study examined the leadership styles, professional development practices of

a police department, and the reflective experiences of police sergeants as they transition

from being patrol officers, and the perception of police sergeants of their career

development. Specifically, this study sought to answer the following essential questions:

1. What are the self-reported and observed leadership styles and practices of

police sergeants at the Echo Bay police department?

2. To what extent do police sergeants practice the tenants of transformational

leadership?

3. How do police departments develop the leadership competencies of their police

sergeants?

45
 4. What are the sergeants’ perceptions of their transition from patrol officers to

first line supervisors?

This research is a case study using a qualitative approach. Ospina (2004) points

out how qualitative research on leadership has offered some advantages such as (a)

flexibility to follow unexpected ideas as they arise during the course of research, (b)

ability to study symbolic dimensions and social meaning and increase opportunities for

relevance and interest for practitioners. Research further suggested that new insight on

leadership can be attributed to qualitative studies that focus on the circumstances

associated with organizational types or occupational settings (Bryman et al, 1996; Engel,

2001). A single case study of a suburban police department was conducted to gain better

insight into leadership development in law enforcement and the leadership practices of

first-line supervisors. Yin (2009) defined a case study as “an empirical inquiry that

investigates a contemporary phenomenon in depth and within its real-life context,

especially when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly

evident” (p. 18).

The researcher employed a qualitative approach to answer the essential research

questions. Qualitative researchers study their subjects in their natural settings, attempt to

make sense of, or to interpret, phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to them

(Maxwell, 2005). The researcher was the main instrument for data collection and data

analysis.

Research Context

The study took place in a suburban county located in New York State. According

to the U.S. Census Bureau (2008), the county contains 45 municipalities and the

46
estimated population is 953,943. For the purpose of the study, the research site was

referred to as the Echo Bay police department in order to maintain confidentiality. In

2008, the city of Echo Bay within the county had a population of 73,376 which is served

by one police department. According to the 2009 Police Department Annual Report, the

mission of the Echo Bay Police Department is to “provide a professional community-

oriented police service to protect life and property and maintain order while assuring fair

and equal treatment to all” (p. 3). The Echo Bay Police Department was established in

1885 with a staff of four police officers; a captain, and three policemen. In 1896, the first

police chief of the department introduced bicycles, mounted patrols, and horse-drawn

wagons to patrol the community. Today the Echo Bay Police Department is a full-service

police department with 252 employees of which 188 are sworn police officers (New York

State Division of Criminal Justice Services, 2009). The department has three major

divisions: Staff Service Division, Police Services Division, and Criminal Investigations

Division. Each division consists of various subunits that are responsible for specific areas

of operation.

1. The Staff Service Division provides auxiliary services to the department. This

division consists of seven units which are the Records Unit, Communication Unit,

Training Unit, Alarm Monitoring Unit, Property & Evidence Unit, Information Systems

Unit, and Jail/Court Liaison Unit.

2. The Police Service Division is responsible for providing uniform police

services throughout the city. The division consists of five units which are the Patrol Unit,

PACT (Police and Community Together) Unit, Special Operations Unit, Traffic Unit and

the Community Resource Coordinator.

47
 3. The Criminal Investigations Division is responsible for the implementation of

crime prevention strategies, detection and arrest of criminals, recovery of lost and stolen

property, and location of missing persons. This division has five units which are: General

Investigations Unit, Property Theft Unit, Special Investigations Unit, Forensics Unit, and

the Warrant Unit (Echo Bay 2009, Annual Report).

The challenges of 21st century policing, as described in Chapter 1, are proactively

addressed by the Echo Bay Police Department. According to New York State Division of

Criminal Justice Services Crime Index Report for the period of 2006–2010, the Echo Bay

Police Department has experienced a 23% decrease in crime over this four-year period.

Since the inception of Echo Bay Police Department, the scope of services have

been expanded to meet the challenges of the community and emerging crime trends. The

department has expanded its use of technology to include computer mapping of crimes

and in spite of scarce resources the department has invested in training and development.

These advances represent a stark indication of how the leadership of this department has

attempted to meet the challenges of policing in the 21st century. This type of vision is

often thought of as pioneering and transforming as the department is not reacting to

problems but attempting to prevent them using actionable data as opposed to anecdotal

reporting (Echo Bay Annual Report, 2010).

Research Participants

Maxwell (2005) described purposeful selection as “a strategy in which particular

settings, persons, or activities are selected deliberately in order to provide information

that can’t be gotten as well from other choices” (p. 89). The research participants were

sergeants who are considered front line supervisors and who play a vital role in the

48
success of police departments across the country. Preliminary research showed that they

are understudied, yet their roles determine in large part the nature of our criminal justice

system and the quality of community life. Police sergeants have enormous discretion in

performing their function, executing the tactical plan of their lieutenants and strategic

orders of their captains. If the lieutenants are the heart and the captains are the brain of

police departments, the sergeants are the soul of this institution. This is in line with the

old adage that generals win battles, sergeants win wars (Baker, 2008).

This police department is organized in a hierarchical fashion with the frontline or

patrol officer being the largest group of employees; they are supervised by the sergeants

who are supervised by the lieutenants. The lieutenants are supervised by the captains who

reports to the Deputy Commissioner. The Deputy Commissioner reports to the

Commissioner. This is fairly typical of medium size police departments. In terms of

positionality, the sergeants are the most likely supervisory staff to have contact with the

public and as such are considered front-line supervisors. The 2010 Annual Report for

Echo Bay Police Department illustrates an organizational structure that consists of the

various positions: one police commissioner, one deputy police commissioner, three

captains, 10 lieutenant, 15 sergeants, 23 detective, 65 police officers, 10 community

service officers, 1 civilian employee, and 3 school crossing guards. For visual

demonstration of the reporting relationship, an organizational chart is included (See

Appendix A.).

This study focused on the leadership experience at the rank of police sergeants.

Police sergeants are the first-line supervisors in policing and are responsible for

coordinating the work and providing supervision to the police officers assigned to them.

49
A review of the department demographics revealed that there were 24 police sergeants in

the department. Research participants were not compensated for their participation in the

study.

Establishing relationship based on reflexivity. Maxwell (2005) states that the

relationships researchers create with the study participants are an essential part of the

research. Further, “Bosk (1979, p. ix) noted that fieldwork is a ‘body-contact’ sport, and

your research relationships create and structure this contact” (Maxwell, 2005, p. 82).

Recognizing the fact that the researcher is part of the social world he or she studies is

what Hammersley and Atkinson (1995) refer to as “reflexivity.” The researcher

recognized that such body contact was particularly important in a field that is often closed

to outsiders and determined that full engagement was required in order to get authentic

data. The researcher is a criminal justice professional with over 15 years of experience in

the field as well as a resident of Echo Bay. As a criminal justice professional who started

her career in a large metropolitan district attorney office and who currently works as a

criminal justice professor in addition to being employed full-time with the judicial

system, the researcher has worked either directly or indirectly with the law enforcement

community. Therefore, this combination of insider and outsider status enabled the

researcher to approach this study with some understanding of the organizational culture.

In addition, the researcher was able to draw upon a network of criminal justice

professionals to gain access to key stakeholders and law enforcement experts who were

willing to discuss the concept of leadership in policing, served as a panel of experts, and

vested in the success of the policing profession.

50
 Criteria for site and participant selection. The qualitative case study used a

purposeful sample in choosing the Echo Bay Police Department as the researcher

specifically wanted to know how it operated. The Echo Bay Police Department is 1 out of

43 police departments located within a suburban county in New York State. The

department is located in the community in which the researcher resides and as a

customer/citizen has an overt interest in the right policing, namely, policing for the 21st

century. Police departments are notorious for their secrecy and their skepticism of

outsiders. It is often referred to in the vernacular as the “blue wall of silence.” Because of

that, the internship that the researcher had at Echo Bay was critical in terms of getting to

know the officers in such a way to increase her credibility, reduce the officers’ fear that

their territory was being invaded, and establish a level of trust that would serve as an

additional safeguard against being provided with faulty information.

The criteria for site selection was a police precinct comprised of the following: (a)

a mid-size police department (as defined by the researcher) with no more than 300

employees (there were three police departments in the county that met the size

requirement), (b) located in a city within a northern suburb of New York City that was

close in proximity to the researcher, and (c) certified by the New York State Law

Enforcement Accreditation Program and the New York State Municipal Police Training

Council. A police department earns accreditation when it meets a total of 64 standards,

which are divided into the following three categories: (a) administrative standards (fiscal

management and personnel management), (b) training standards (basic and in-service,

specialized training or technical assignments), and (c) operational standards (traffic stops,

51
use of force, and roadblocks; New York State Law Enforcement Accreditation Program,

2009).

Access was possible given major contacts the researcher had with that

community. Further, the Echo Bay Police Department had several programs designed to

strengthen the relationship between the police department and the community. These

programs provided citizens the opportunity to learn about the criminal justice system and

police operations at the Echo Bay Police Departments. Therefore, this police department

seemed more open to granting the researcher access. While there were other departments

that met the type and size requirements, this site had the greatest potential for access and

gaining authentic data.

Maxwell (2005) defines gatekeepers as people who can facilitate or interfere with

the study and are an essential part of the methods the researcher uses to initiate and

negotiate these relationships. The gatekeepers were instrumental in helping the researcher

understand the technical and cultural aspect of policing. Upon approval from the police

department to conduct the study, the researcher was assigned a gatekeeper who served as

a liaison between the researcher, police officers, and the upper ranks of the department.

All 24 sergeants in the department were invited to participate in the study. Fourteen

police sergeants volunteered to participate in the study. A survey instrument was issued

to the entire workforce of sergeants that included an invitation to participate in the in-

depth interviews. The process for selecting sergeants to participate in the in-depth

interviews was through a self-selective process. This process yielded a total of 9

interviews out of the total 14 who returned the initial survey.

52
Instruments Used in Data Collection

The goal of this research was to identify the leadership behaviors and practices of

first line supervisors in a police department. In order to understand the lived experiences

of the research participants, four different techniques were used to collect data: (a) open-

ended questions, (b) direct observations, and (c) a quantitative survey instrument. The

researcher used in-depth interviews to examine the sergeants’ perceptions of their

leadership practices and professional development experience. Direct observations and

field notes allowed the researcher to study the participants within their own environment.

While this research used qualitative methods to gather data, a quantitative instrument was

used to gather general information on the transformation leadership qualities that existed

within Echo Bay Police Department. Specifically the use of a the Multifactor Leadership

Questionnaire (MLQ) allowed the researcher to evaluate the extent to which the police

sergeants saw themselves as transformational, transactional, or laissez faire leaders.

The data collection process took place in three phases. First, the researcher

distributed 24 surveys to each of the sergeants in the police department. A packet of

information which included a letter to the sergeant that explained the purpose of the

study, and the informed consent form were distributed to every sergeant in the police

department (see Appendix B).The surveys were administered via e-mail and in hard copy

to the police sergeants who executed the informed consent form. To increase the response

rate, the researcher sent a follow up e-mail with an attachment to the sergeants who did

not respond to the initial invitation to participate in the study. The attachment included

the sergeants’ letter and the link to the surveys. The researcher also visited the police

department during the different shifts to introduce herself and explain the study to the

53
sergeants who did not respond to either request for participation. There were 10 sergeants

who opted not to participate in the study. This yielded a response rate of 59%.

Description of instruments. Detailed descriptions of the three instruments, an

open-ended list of questions, participant observations, and the MLQ, follow.

Open-ended list of questions. Open-ended questions were used so that the

researcher could understand the experience of others and the meaning the department’s

police sergeants make of that experience The researcher took good care to formulate

open-ended questions that allowed the respondent to have a conversation about the

essential questions without being leading or restricting. This free-flowing exchange

promoted not only candor but invited related thoughts that otherwise would not have

surfaced. The questions were primarily open-ended in a format that allowed for

unadulterated responses (see Appendix C.). The researcher used transformational

leadership as the theoretical lens to develop the open-ended questions. The questions

were designed to answer each of the essential research questions and were arranged

around four major themes: leadership style/behaviors, professional development and

transition challenges.

The questionnaire was developed by the researcher with input from a panel of

experts so that face and content validity could be established. Maxwell (2005) defines

panels as “people who are uniquely able to be informative because they are expert in an

area or were privileged witness to an event.” The panel of experts consisted of five

former police sergeants who were promoted to other ranks in the department.

Collectively, this panel had approximately 100 years of institutional knowledge and

policing experience. A general protocol, to conduct the in-depth interviews, was

54
developed to ensure that rapport was established so that respondents could feel

comfortable and that the major questions could be answered by all respondents. This

group of former sergeants was instrumental in providing the research with feedback on

the interview guide and, specifically, in determining whether or not the questions work as

intended and/or if revisions were needed.

The in-depth interviews were the essential vehicle for collecting data. This

modality was chosen because it allowed for the sharing of the personal and professional

experiences of those being interviewed as well as facilitated the researcher’s capacity to

seek clarification and to be educated on the leadership behavior of first-line supervisors.

Through this medium, the researcher was as much of a student as she was a professional

researcher, channeling the voices of those being studied. This research technique was

flexible and designed to respond to the ebb and flow of the process. The in-depth

interviews were conducted with 9 out of the 14 police sergeants who completed the

surveys and who had indicated on the survey their willingness to participate in the in-

depth interview component of the process. By sharing their experiences as first-line

supervisors, their leadership practices, and their leadership development opportunities

within the department, the researcher was able to understand with some depth the specific

occurrence of these processes within the department. Approximately 30 questions related

to the study’s four essential questions were asked of the respondents.

For the purpose of triangulation, a focus group was held with police sergeants

from another police department. The sergeants were asked to define leadership, discuss

the career development opportunities afforded to them, and to discuss their transition

from patrol officer to police sergeant. The data collected from the sergeants’ focus group

55
was transcribed, a preliminary analysis was done, but, due to time constraints, the data

was not included in the findings section. However, triangulation was achieved by

analyzing the field notes, observations, and interviews.

The data collection process consisted of taped and subsequently transcribed in-

depth interviews. Once the sergeants completed the MLQ a subsequent e-mail was sent

out to them notifying them about the interviews. The interviews were conducted within a

four-week time period. They were held on site at the police department and at a time

convenient for the sergeants. The interviews ranged from 45 minutes up to two hours in

length.

Participant observations. Yin (2009) described participant observation as a

special mode of observation in which the researcher is not a passive observer. Instead, the

researcher assumes a variety of roles within a case study situation and may actually

participate in the event being studied. Through the process of participant observations the

researcher collected data while interacting with the police sergeants in their work

environment. There were 21 instances when the researcher observed three of the

sergeants in their natural setting. Settings included, but were not limited to, police

training sessions, roll call, and field operations. The participant observations allowed the

researcher the opportunity to observe the sergeants’ leadership style.

The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire and Professional Development

surveys. The researcher used the MLQ to determine the overall leadership style at work

within this police department among first-line supervisors (See Appendix D.). It was also

used as part of the selection protocol for in-depth interviews. Utilizing the MLQ allowed

the researcher to globally report on the leadership styles of the first-line supervisors at

56
Echo Bay Police Department through the lens of the valid and reliable MLQ. The MLQ

5X has been used extensively in research on transformational leadership. It has been

validated and documented in various studies (Bass & Riggio, 2006; Avolio, 1999; Bass,

1997).). The interest of this researcher dictated the choice of Bass’s instrument because it

allows for a clear determination of one’s leadership style from a continuum of

transformational, transactional, and laissez faire, a feature missing in the other

instruments. This tool was used as a first step for screening and determining the

leadership profile of first-line supervisors within an identified police department. This

qualitative study answered the call for more experimentation by Brown and Lord (1999)

as well as Awamleh and Gardner (1999). The use of interviews and field observations

allowed for measuring the extent to which sergeants engage in a particular type of

leadership based on their behavioral and their verbal and nonverbal messaging. In order

to use the MLQ 5X, the researcher purchased a license from a vendor (See Appendix D.).

A second survey, as an addendum to the MLQ, was used by the researcher to

collect demographic data on the respondents, which included: (a) level of education, (b)

gender, (c) age, (d) tenure as an officer, and (e) tenure as a supervisor, in addition to

information on career development (See Appendix E.). The career development survey

was adapted from a research study conducted by Everts (2001).

Procedures for Data Collection

Strategies for analyzing interview data. Researchers suggested that although

there seems to be no universally agreed-upon view of the coding process in qualitative

research, many qualitative data analyses begin with the identification of key themes and

patterns (Gough & Scott, 2000). Coding is the process by which researchers condense

57
their data sets into analyzable units by creating categories. Therefore, this researcher

reviewed the data for themes and patterns of concepts. Critical terms associated with

transformational leadership and leadership development, such as job enlargement, job

enrichment, mentoring, coaching, role playing, idealized influence, intellectual

stimulation, management by exception, socio-technical system, were included in the code

book. Two strategies were used for the coding process. The first strategy matched what

was expected as per the code book to the interview content. The second strategy gleaned

from the interviews themes and trends worthy of coding. The researcher and a research

assistant reviewed both audio and transcribed interviews for codes and themes. Manually,

the researcher and research consultant (a) identified broad themes, (b) examined

frequency of words for potential themes, and (c) identified relationships. The researcher

interviewed all of the officers who self-selected to participate in the in-depth interviews,

nine in total. This protected against selection bias, which was considered a threat to

external validity.

Selection bias. To achieve a higher level of continuity and dependability, the

interviews were tape recorded. An independent research assistant was used to identify

key responses. This was based on the coding system developed by the researcher as well

as those that emerged from the interviews. The researcher also identified emerging

themes and cross validated the findings with those of the independent research assistant.

The primary source of the work was the professionally transcribed interviews based on

the audiotapes.

Strategies for analyzing participant observation data. In qualitative research,

interpretation by the researcher is expected because the process is inductive and the

58
researcher’s personal view informs the interpretation. In this case, the researcher was not

a police officer, therefore interpretation was from the perspective of a consumer/citizen, a

practitioner who comes in regular contact with law enforcement professionals, and an

academic interested in improving the quality of policing. The police department under

study served a predominantly diverse community and was sensitive to their universal and

ethnocentric needs. The scheduled direct observation and working side by side with

sergeants on patrol informed this researcher about the thinking and subsequent actions

taken by sergeants as they used their discretion and supervised their officers. The

opportunity to witness the sergeants’ processes helped in determining the extent to which

they were engaged in transformational leadership behaviors.

The researcher used the work of Bass and Kouzes and Posner as a lens to interpret

the observations. Bass (2003) speaks of intellectual stimulation, individual consideration,

idealized influence, and inspirational motivation while Kouzes and Posner (2007) posit

that challenge the process, embrace the heart, enable others to act, inspire a shared vision,

and model the way are five exemplary practices of transformational leadership. For

example, a sergeant who was observed accommodating a request for a particular schedule

from an officer whose grandmother was sick was identified as exercising individual

consideration. A sergeant who was observed providing feedback and demonstrating how

to complete a task was identified as modeling the way. As I conducted these observations

in the sergeants’ natural environment, namely, their patrol car, the sergeants’ desk, and

on the streets, I became part of the environment as an engaged observer and debriefed

with sergeants to ensure what was observed and interpreted though the researchers’ lens

was aligned with that of the sergeants. I also used an observation guide, which included

59
(a) time/date/location of the observation, (b) names/positions of persons being

interviewed/observed, and (c) the specific activities and events under observation.

Finally, I used personal journals and memos outlining field experiences such as reflective

accounts of lessons to be learned, new ideas, research protocols, etc.

Strategies for analyzing survey data. The researcher obtained the raw data and

scale scores in a comma separated value (csv) file and used the Statistical Package for

Social Science software (SPSS) to analyze the data. The data from the Multifactor

Leadership Questionnaire 5X short form (MLQ5X) were classified and interpreted on a

continuum of transformational, transactional, and laissez-faire using the MLQ scoring

rubric. The surveys were used to examine the sergeants’ leadership style as identified by

the MLQ, the sergeants’ perception of the career development opportunities offered to

them by their department, and demographic data. The researcher used descriptive

statistics such as gender, education, and tenure status to shed light on who the participants

were and through cross analyses determine if there were any trends in the responses

connected to these identifiers.

In conclusion, the researcher examined the leadership practices of police

sergeants at the Echo Bay Police Department. The researcher used the four different

techniques of direct observations, in depth interviews, questionnaires, and a survey

instrument to obtain data. The data were collected via audio and typed transcriptions,

electronic and hard copy filing, and field notes. The data from the in-depth interviews

were analyzed using predetermined and emerging themes. The MLQ was used to provide

information on the sergeants’ leadership style .An established protocol design by the

author of the MLQ was used to analyze the collected data. Finally, the results were

60
documented in Chapter 4 with the major themes identified and exemplified with quotes

from selected participants and the results of the MLQ were used as a leadership backdrop

to the study and explained in tabular form and in context.

61
 Chapter 4: Results

Research Questions

As police organizations evolve and greater emphasis is placed on alternative

policing methods, such as community policing and problem-oriented policing, research

suggests that transformational styles of leadership can strengthen supervisors’ influence

over officers’ behaviors (Engel & Worden, 2003). Scholars recognize the important role

that first-line supervisors (also known as sergeants) play in law enforcement. First-line

supervisors communicate new expectations to subordinate officers and ensure that

officers meet those expectations while on duty (Baker 2008). Overall, however, the

literature on police supervision is limited in scope. It fails to address conceptual and

empirical questions regarding first-line supervisors (Engel and Worden, 2003). This study

examined the leadership behavior of police sergeants through the theoretical lens of

transformational leadership (Bass & Bass, 2008), the type of professional development

opportunities made available to them, their perception of their leadership practices as

well as the challenges they faced as they transition from being police officers to first line

supervisors.

This chapter reports the findings of the study thematically and is organized around

the four essential research questions. Four distinct themes emerged during the research.

The first theme was Self-Perception of Sergeants as Leaders: Leadership Behaviors of

first-line supervisor. The second theme was Practices of Transformational Leadership as

reported by Sergeants. The third theme was Professional and Leadership Development of

62
First-Line Supervisor. The last and final theme was Challenges faced by Police

Sergeants. Each theme related to the study’s research questions centered on the

professional/leadership experiences of police sergeants. The essential research questions

were:

1. What are the self-reported and observed leadership styles and practices of

police sergeants at the Echo Bay police department?

2. To what extent do police sergeants practice the tenants of transformational

leadership?

3. How do police departments develop the leadership competencies of their police

sergeants and

4. What are the sergeants’ perceptions of the challenges they faced as they

transition from patrol officers to first line supervisors?

To help understand the findings, it was necessary to set the stage from two

perspectives: (a) the nature of professional police work and (b) the dynamic environment

as well as the centralized workplace of the sergeants. The chapter ends with a summary

of findings.

Setting the stage: unique to the job of policing. Understanding this much-

textured setting requires an appreciation of the unique and specific features of the

policing profession. The participants all seemed to be in agreement that there are reasons

to think of their jobs as different from those of other professionals. Mostly, these reasons

centered on the fact that policing carries with it a great deal of ethical, legal, moral, and

professional responsibility. In a number of cases police officers are called upon to make

split-second decisions that very few other professions would be asked to perform. In the

63
case of police work, the circumstances are rarely ideal and the potential for a negative

outcome is omnipresent. This concept was evident during a conversation between the

researcher and an expert panel member (EPM).

Imagine being offered a job and the salary is 250K a year. Would you take the

job? What if that job came with one caveat . . . ? You cannot say no. Would you

still take the job? In policing, when a call comes over the radio shots fired citizen

in need of assistance, police officers respond to the call no matter what . . . they

have no choice in the matter. No is never an option. Regardless of the type of call,

police officers are the first on the scene, running to, not away from, the incident.

It’s a job/profession where the salary doesn’t begin to compensate for the risk and

danger face by law enforcement officers. (EPM1)

The Echo Bay precinct’s environment. The Echo Bay Police department sits on

a major thoroughfare in town and is a prominent, wheelchair-accessible building with a

large parking lot. The design of the building emphasizes functionality as opposed to

comfort. This was based on my environment scan. At first glance the police department

was active, orderly, and always a busy place, regardless of the time. There was a clear

demarcation of areas where the police operate and where the public is expected to

conduct business. For example, members of the public who had the need to enter into the

officers’ space were required to be accompanied by an officer. Doors leading to officers

and/or their units were closed and appeared locked.

Slightly out of view from the public and directly behind the reception window,

was the communication/command post. This is where the desk sergeant was located. In

the center of the command/communication room, located high on a platform was what

64
the officers commonly referred to as The Desk, which overlooked several workstations.

Directly behind the desk were closed-circuit monitors that watched the out-of-view

perimeter. The following areas were in full view of the desk sergeant: the parking lot, a

prisoner loading area known as the sally port, jail cells, lobby, booking area, and other

work spaces. The sergeant, who managed the desk for the shift (also referred to as the

tour) is generally responsible for maintaining contact with all officers on patrol. He/she

provides guidance and feedback to officers in the preparation of all paperwork, processes

arrests, and conducts security checks of the facility.

The workstations were staffed with a police officer and five community service

officers who answered calls and dispatched the officers to the scene. Large computer

screens displayed each call, officers’ location, and action taken for each call. The chatter

of the walkie-talkie, the ringing of the phones, and the muffled discussions between

officers and citizens were incessant. The quality of the interactions between the citizens

and officers was courteous and professional. The nature of the interaction was

transactional. There were dynamic exchanges between citizens and officers, that sought

to problem solve. This initial environmental scan showed evidence of transformational

leadership, as defined by Bass and Bass (2008), taking place within the police

department. Findings from this study showed the extent to which sergeants are exercising

transformational leadership qualities and how these qualities were present without formal

leadership training.

Overview of findings. The research questions that guided the inquiry yielded the

following results. In response to the first research question, which examined the self-

reported and observed leadership styles and practices of police sergeants at the Echo Bay

65
police department, the sergeants identified concepts that for them defined leadership or

exemplified leadership behaviors. These concepts ranged from maintaining integrity,

modeling other leaders, individualized consideration, and leadership can be taught with

limitation.

The second question sought to examine the extent to which sergeants’ practiced

the tenants of transformational leadership. The in-depth interviews revealed evidence of

transformational leadership. However, the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ)

revealed that sergeants were equally transformational and transactional. It was further

noted that the Echo Bay Police Department created an environment where mentoring,

coaching, and modeling other leaders were used as a methods to develop the leadership

competencies of the first line supervisors. This was done informally.

The discovery of an informal system of leadership/professional development

answered the third question: How do police departments develop the leadership

competencies of their police sergeants? The finding suggested that police sergeants at

Echo Bay used transformational leadership behaviors to help them transition into their

supervisory position.

Last, the fourth question sought to highlight the challenges faced by police

sergeants as they transition from police officer to first line supervisor. Sergeants revealed

that their biggest struggle was finding ways to motivate and engage their subordinates as

well as supervising former colleagues. Additionally, sergeants indicated the need for

leadership training that addressed the unique needs of police sergeants.

The sergeants at the Echo Bay Police Department provided the researcher with a

total 96 themes and subthemes that revealed the perceived challenges of first-line

66
supervisors, their leadership behaviors, and the leadership development opportunities

afforded to them. The next section discusses in detail the data and related findings

starting with a descriptive analysis.

Data Analysis and Findings

The researcher conducted this study using a variety of qualitative methods, such

as questionnaires, interviews, and observations. Rich textural data was used to answer the

research questions. There was a process of identifying and ranking themes and subthemes

to provide meaning. The researcher focused on the frequency of themes occurring across

participants.

Interview data. Nine interviews were conducted with sergeants who self-selected

to participate in the in-depth interview portion of the study. On average, these

interviewees had roughly 12 years of police service before being promoted to sergeant.

The participants were asked a series of open-ended questions that focused on their

thoughts on leadership, their perception of their own leadership development and their

perception on their transition from line officer to supervisor. These respondents provided

the researcher with densely rich material regarding their ideas about leadership. They

provided examples from their work as police officers, sergeants, as well as from non-

policing life experiences to illustrate their viewpoints on leadership or to draw parallels to

their ideals. Overall, the interview data generated 96 themes and subthemes that were

organized into six categories based on the essential research questions (see Appendix F.).

The categories were Qualities Inherent or Unique to the Job of Policing (6 themes),

General Challenges to Sergeants (4 themes), Transformational Leadership Qualities (65

67
themes and subthemes), Transactional Leadership Qualities (2 subthemes), Professional

Development (14 themes), Challenges to New Sergeants (5 themes).

For the purpose of this study, the researcher reported comprehensively on themes

that were identified across 60–100% of the participants. First, the researcher used a cross

analysis to identify themes that occurred across all nine participants and subsequently did

so for distribution over eight and seven participants. The researcher was mindful of the

fact that the lack of reporting may be as significant as common reporting of themes;

therefore, low frequency occurrences of themes are presented in a separate section

following. As noted in Chapter 3 the researcher opted to process some themes,

concurrently as subthemes. This meant, for example, that for the subtheme and theme of

encourage the heart, there were reporting on encourage the heart as a subtheme, which

occurred in 7 interviews, while other subthemes, such as close supervision, were reported

in seven and six interviews and 13 and 15 times each. This resulted in the overarching

theme of encourage the heart as being reported 48 times with encourage the heart by

itself reported 20 times. In addition, a descriptive analysis was used to provide

demographic information on the respondents who participated in the study.

Questionnaire data. The nine respondents who participated in the in depth

interviews were self-selected from fourteen police sergeants who responded to the

survey. The survey questions were demographic and professional in nature. The

remainder of the survey addressed questions related to police professional development

and items from the MLQ.

Descriptive analysis: participants’ demographics. Out of a total of 24 first-line

supervisors at the Echo Bay Police Department who were classified as police sergeants,

68
14 agreed to take the MLQ. The age range of the participants was divided into two

groups, of which 50% were between the ages of 36-45 while the other 50% were over 45

years old. A total of 58% (14) police sergeants participated in the study—2 females and

12 males. Among the 14 participants under study, four (29%) were African American,

one Hispanic (7%), eight Caucasian (57%)s and one (7%) of mixed race. Among the

participants surveyed, nine (64%) were married, four (28%) single and one separated

sergeants. Their law enforcement work experience varied in that one sergeant had 6 to 10

years’ experience, three had 11 to 15 years’ experience, five had 16 to 20 years’

experience, and five sergeants had over 21 years’ experience. The educational levels of

the sergeants ranged from an associate degree to a doctorate. Two participants had juris

doctorates, four had master’s degrees, seven had bachelor’s degrees, and one an earned

associate degree.

Research Question 1

The first research question sought to establish what were the self-reported and

observed leadership styles and practices of police sergeants at the Echo Bay police

department. The researcher used a two-pronged approach, in-depth interviews and

participant observations, to answer this question. In order to better understand the

leadership practices of police sergeants at the Echo Bay police department, the researcher

engaged the participants in a dialogue about leadership in the context of policing. The

participants were asked a series of open-ended questions that focused on their thoughts

on leadership. For example, the participants were asked to define leadership in their own

words, to discuss some characteristics of effective leadership, and speak to the critical

leadership qualities they felt sergeants needed to have in their position as first-line

69
supervisors. When they expressed their thoughts and feelings about leadership, the

participants’ comments yielded a total of 65 leadership themes.

The researcher organized the numerous subthemes into 10 overarching themes.

There was much overlap between Research Question 1 and Research Question 2. This

overlap existed because respondents sometimes discussed ideals of leadership by holding

themselves up as examples, through anecdotes or self-descriptions. All of the themes and

subthemes pertaining to Research Question 1 were raised during the interviews as

characteristics of leadership or as the qualities and behaviors associated with leadership

and leaders. All fall within the theme category of Transformational Leadership. The way in

which the themes and subthemes were named and organized is presented in Appendix G.

The researcher used a cross analysis to identify the top-10 reported leadership

characteristics/concepts. Themes that were identified across respondents between 60 and

100% were included in the analysis and are discussed in the next section.

Sergeants’ perceptions on top-10 leadership characteristics. The participants

identified the following 10 concepts as important elements of leadership at the first-line

supervisor level. Table 4.1 highlights the top-10 characteristic of leadership as described

by the sergeants.

70
Table 4.1

Leadership Characteristics in Rank Order as Perceived by Participants

Sergeant’s Perception of Leadership: Mentioned in Theme

Top-10 Concepts n Interviews Frequency

Maintain Personal and Professional Integrity 9 57

Model Other Leaders 9 35

Individualized Consideration 9 34

Leadership Can be Taught 9 13

Knowledge 8 38

Coaching Approach 8 35

Ambition 8 29

Accountability for Subordinate 8 14

Mentoring 7 26

Encourage the Heart 7 20

All of the sergeants viewed effective leadership as being multifaceted and

requiring a cornucopia of skills that produced a desired outcome. As highlighted by

Sergeant 3: “leadership within the context of policing is defined as being able to get the

job done through and with other people.” Further, a number of participants saw

themselves as leaders by the nature and responsibility of their position as sergeants. As

Sergeant 3 acknowledged:

Some people take on a leadership role [within an organization] where sergeants

are given a leadership role I think people want . . . to follow you; . . . I think

people are begging to be led, and with that, people want to know there’s security

in that. They want to know if something bad happens, xx, legally, or emotionally,

71
 that you’re going to be able to be there and take care of them. So you don’t break

down crying at a bad scene; or you don’t say, “No, I didn’t make that decision,

someone else did.” All those kind of things, you’re responsible for. People [your

team] want you to do that [be responsible].

Maintain personal and professional integrity. Across all nine participants, the

importance of integrity was emphasized. Participants made references to this ideal of

personal and professional integrity a total of 57 times. These concepts were assigned to

quotations that referred to actions taken with the aim to do the right thing, sometimes in

the face of various types of pressure and sometimes in spite of what might be easier or

more pleasurable. As an example Sergeant 5 offered the following comment:

As a patrolman you can cut corners—not abusing the law—but you can cut

corners . . . as long as you didn’t do it right in front of the supervisor. Now as a

supervisor I didn’t have that ’cause now I have to be the one who tells you that

you don’t cut corners.

Sergeant 9 emphasized the value of integrity. “I think an important value is

integrity. I believe you need to be honest and direct in certain instances”

Sergeant 7 felt that it was important to treat everyone in the same way.

My values and beliefs as it pertains to the Police Department is that this is a tough

job at times, and it’s an easy job at times. You have to treat people the same as if

you were making a felony arrest, as if the person that comes in to make a silly

complaint about a barking dog. So you got to treat everyone the same, ultimately

you have a job to do, so my values are … equality, you still have to do your job

which is sometimes enforcement and arrest. ( Sergeant 7)

72
 Sergeant 6 emphasized the value of honesty, saying, “[Some of the characteristics

that I attribute to effective leadership are] being forthright and truthful, you know, never

lying to your men or your people.

Individualized consideration. Individualized consideration refers to a leader

who reaches subordinates on a personal, one-on-one level in order to foster a supportive

relationship. The following quotes exemplified some aspects of this theme, while perhaps

not capturing the theme in its entirety. A quotation from Sergeant 5 exemplified this main

theme as it relates to defining leadership: “[Leadership is] realizing that you can’t take a

message or an order and deliver it to 10 people and expect the same understanding

amongst all 10.” The theme itself was identified 34 times in all nine interview texts.

Leadership can be taught. The concept that leadership can be taught with

limitation speaks to the notion that leadership is not elusive. Baker (2008) suggests that

police leadership directly affects police officers and the way they perform their duties.

Haberfeld (2002) posits that education and training is critical for law enforcement

officers. Therefore, in order for law enforcement agencies to find potential leaders when

positions become available, law enforcement organizations need to invest in leadership

training for officers at the beginning of their careers. The majority of participants

recognized that all officers were leaders or at least had the potential to become one. As

noted by Sergeant 7: “Being a police officer, you’re also in a leadership role as well

because you are being called to solve people’s problems, whether it be an accident or a

domestic incident.”

The sergeants further acknowledged that their police officers had a great deal of

autonomy and responsibility that came with their position. As observed by the researcher,

73
it was the officer who responded to the call first and the supervisor who followed, but it

was the officer who had to take control of the scene. Based on the nature of policing, a

majority of the sergeants felt that it was their responsibility to prepare their officers for

what they might experience in the field. Hence perceptions on the importance of

leadership training are captured by comments made by Sergeant 4. “Leadership training

is important because police officers are going to be the sergeants, [then] lieutenants;

they’re going to be in the administration in the years to come . . . so it is important.”

Additional examples of the concept that leadership can be taught with limitation

were expressed by Sergeants 1, 2, 3, and 5, as follows.

I think some aspects of leadership can be taught because I sure didn’t know

everything, or don’t know everything right now. . . . My group of lieutenants, my

bosses, when they were sergeants, they told me what they did or how they’d done

it, so you can learn some things. Other things you can’t learn like it’s your . . .

personality. . . . Just because . . . they make you sergeant, doesn’t mean that

you’re an effective sergeant, an effective supervisor. There are some things you

can learn, but most of it has to be . . . from yourself. (Sergeant 1)

Sergeant 2 said, “I think some of [of leadership] can [be taught]; I think you can teach

someone the skills, but if they’re not inherently a leader, sort of by personality, I don’t

think that they will be an effective leader.” Sergeant 3 offered this: “I think leadership

training is extremely relevant and it should exist. . . . I do believe it can be taught and I

think if people want to, it can be learned.” Sergeant 5 added,

Some principles of leadership can be taught, yes, but there has to be certain,

certain things have to be I would say innate to be an effective leader and clearly

74
 not everybody because we come and we saw the supervisor just simply passing a

civil service exam and having a good enough track record as a worker to be

promoted. So you know, being an adequate leader and being a good leader they’re

two different things.

Model other leaders and seek advice. Participants made a good deal of mention

of their sense that their leadership qualities were modeled after their own past or present

supervisors. Sergeants indicated the importance of learning from more experienced

officers in order to attain a broader understanding and ultimately practice of leadership.

One sergeant provided the following insight: “As far as being a people person, I

knew I wanted to be able to effectively talk to the public and my men. Sergeant [name]

was very vocal, very good with that.” In terms of seeking advice from other leaders, a

quotation from Sergeant 1 sums it up succinctly: “You want to get [advice from] your

lieutenants because they’ve been around long before you were and they might have dealt

with the same type of issue.”

Knowledge. Sergeants emphasized the necessity of possessing and regularly

updating or increasing one’s knowledge of topics relating to all aspects of their work.

Without in-depth and job-specific knowledge, the Idealized Attributes, including ethics,

fairness, and trustworthiness, is described as difficult to be practiced. Some sergeants

suggested that knowledge outside of the field of policing can broaden one’s perspective

and deepen one’s wisdom. An example of this concept follows:

To be a leader you have to have knowledge. A lot of times police officers aren’t

sure what the law is. I think if you’re going to do this profession you have to take

the time to study the law and be familiar with it and know it. You can’t enforce

75
 something if you’re not sure what it is. Just like anything in life, you got to read

the rule book if you’re going to participate. As a leader, guys usually ask the boss;

what do I do in this situation? The reason you know what to do in that situation

[is] ’cause you read up on it, you know the law; you know the rules and

regulations. And to be a supervisor—and to be a leader—you have to have that

knowledge base. . . . You can’t make it up as you go along. (Sergeant 6)

This quote represented the general responses reported among eight of the nine

participants (89%). This concept was raised a total of 38 times, indicating that it is a

commonly held idea understood by study participants to be inherent to good leadership in

the police department.

Coaching approach, guidance, and mentoring. These three concepts were

identified 71 times on average by 78% of the participants. These three closely related

concepts all relied on Individualized Consideration in order to engage the person being

coached, guided, or mentored. Often, respondents not only raised these ideas but actually

mentioned these very words in their narratives. Further, sergeants noted that coaching

approach, guidance, and mentoring were important aspects of leadership. Sergeant 7

exemplified the concept of a coaching approach in this way:

And it actually helped my relationship with my people because they saw I wasn’t

going to take over their call every time. . . . I’d get there—“I’m just here. . . . You

do what you got to do and I’m just here to make sure it gets done in the way it’s

supposed to get done, and you’re doing the job.” . . . If you do a bad job, I’m not

going to rip you in front of everybody else: “Come on, we got to go talk. This is

what should have happened.”

76
 Through the process of participant observation, there was clear evidence of the

presence of on-going coaching, guidance, and mentoring taking place. For example, the

researcher was at the precinct (during a shift change) and there were two sergeants

present at the desk; this was rare as they tend to work the command/communication desks

alone. During the time that both sergeants were present, the sergeant who was not tending

to the desk and its related duties spent his time calling officers and discussing with them a

number of technical and legal issues. The debriefing covered everything from sequence

processing of an arrest to writing what happened accurately and objectively and being

clear as to what law was violated which prompted the arrest. The sergeant was being

instructive to the officer in terms of being mindful of the fact that the officers’

notes/reports are critical in prosecution and/or court proceedings.

Coaching approach was described by Sergeant 3:

You have to understand that we’re not just leading subordinates, we’re leading

people that we want to be leaders. . . . There’s usually a negative connotation to

what we’re doing and that’s reality. So we have to understand that we have people

under us that are going to have to do those things and I think it’s a lot easier for

those people to . . . want to take your instruction if you’ve already done that at

that same level that they were.

Ambition. The concept of ambition was defined in this study as the drive to attain

certain professional goals. The theme was identified by 7 (78%) participants 29 times.

The participants also saw ambition as an important element of leadership. Participants

indicated that if you wanted to become a “boss,” then you have to produce. An officer

77
needs not only to be ambitious but have initiative, intrinsic motivation and be self-taught.

Following are representative quotations of the concept:

On ambition: “When I came here . . . I want to be a commissioner, ’cause that’s

the top spot. I want to be the top guy.” (Sergeant 4)

On initiative: “Very rarely did I like to sit and do nothing. . . . If it was a slow day

I would maybe do radar, speed, issue tickets—always interacting with people, just always

on the go.” (Sergeant 8)

On intrinsic motivation: “I want to always keep going. I’m not necessarily content

sort of being where I am. I need change; I need to do different things.” (Sergeant 2)

On self-taught: “You have the opportunity to study a little more, a little more

down time being on the desk to catch up and read, but you have to do some of the work

yourself, it has to be self-taught.” (Sergeant 7)

On high performer: “I like to work hard at whatever I’m doing, make sure I’m

doing it right; make sure I produce something. Whatever my assignment is, I do it to the

fullest.”

Accountability for subordinates. Participants discussed the concept of

accountability for subordinates in the context of effective leadership. Participants felt that

they had a responsibility to provide guidance, direction, and feedback to their team. As

described by Sergeant 7, “Leadership means having to take responsibility and have a

plan.” In another instance, Sergeant 2 said the following:

I think [the sergeant] has to be willing to make decisions and put yourself

potentially out there because . . . you’re the one who’s going to have to take

responsibility. . . . If you’re not willing to make a decision and stand your ground

78
 and support your decision and your officers, I don’t think you’re an effective

leader.

Mentoring. Bass and Bass (2008) described mentors as individual who motivate

others to advance their careers. Mentors help people to learn and work towards their

potential and find new meaning to their jobs. This concept was expressed by Sergeants 6

and 4 with these statements:

I think by including people in the picture, like explaining this is you’re just one

little step, or one little task, but when you give them the whole big picture saying

okay, you really got to get this done in order for so and so and so and so’s

deadline, and I think not so much leadership that they’re going to step into a

leadership role, but to include them in the decision making or the process I think

helps people get to work, self-motivate themselves more the more they’re aware

of it. (Sergeant 6)

Cops are a different breed when it comes to mentoring and things like that and I

realize that. . . . And they do mentor, some of them are very good, some of them

will tell you. I’ve had supervisors that are mentoring you without being, they’re

not in the traditional sense. (Sergeant 4)

Encourage the heart. Encourage the heart refers to a leader who reaches

subordinates on an emotional level in order to foster personal connectedness within a safe

and supportive atmosphere (Kouzes and Posner, 2007). Sergeant 1 was encouraging the

heart with these thoughts:

If you see a guy on call and you see him doing excellent, doing everything he

should have done, you could tell him all day you did a great job and why’d you do

79
 this? What made you do this? And they explain why they did it and give the right

answer, that’s great.

Sergeant 3 exemplified encourage the heart with his spontaneous wish to help another

person:

You help people with the little things that you think are little, but something as

simple—a guy calls me up one day and he says, “[Name], I’m in the hospital.”

“That’s terrible; what do you need?” “I gotta get a ride home; they’re not letting

me out of the hospital; they’re saying I have to sign waivers and all this.” So on

my way home, we end up finding out that he can leave, and he leaves, and I bring

him down to the lobby, he goes “Thank you very much, thanks a lot.” and he

stops. I’m walking, I’m like, “Who’s driving you home?” And he says, “I’ll have

to call a cab or something.” I’m not going to do that. “Get in the car, I’ll take you

home.” I have a very personal interaction with him. So now I tell him to do

something, or ask him to do something, he’s ready to run through glass for me

because you did the little things which is nothing more than taking time out for

him to drive him home. You know you do a little, . . . to me, that’s leadership.

Encourage the heart was put clearly and succinctly by Sergeant 6 just by saying, “But as

a leader you have to encourage that motivation.” Being accountable for their

subordinates raised additional thoughts about the sergeants’ responsibilities as a leader.

These other concepts are discussed below.

Related subthemes: Sergeants’ perspectives on leadership. When asked what

makes a leader effective, six (67%) of participants agreed that leaders need to be able to

(a) communicate effectively, (b) have knowledge of themselves, (c) provide social

80
emotional support, (d) demonstrate self-confidence and emotional control, and (e)

provide feedback, task significance, and establish trust. As noted by one sergeant: “in

order to lead, one needs followers.” The sergeants spoke about having each other’s back

as well as their officers’ backs and the importance of trust. They felt that their officers

needed to believe and trust that they would do right by them. Sergeant 6 gave these

examples: “Being forthright and truthful, you know, never lying to your men or your

people. Providing a good example of what you expect people to do in their position as a

cop.” Participants also discussed the importance of effective communication, as

sergeants were often called upon to provide clear, concise direction to their team.

Effective communication. As a way to set an example, displaying modes of

effective communication was raised by interviewees. This subtheme in particular is best

taught by modeling. Additionally, Sergeant 3 pointed out how sometimes good

communication allows a leader to model other [transformational] leadership qualities,

such as self-confidence: “People need to know [by your communication] that you’re

thinking clearly, concisely.” This subtheme was raised by seven respondents (78%) a

total of 12 times. The participants also felt that it was important for them as leaders to be

able to make decisions in a timely fashion. Five out of nine (56%) participants felt that

their ability to make a decision was an important aspect of effective leadership.

Participants expressed how in the field of law enforcement, indecisiveness can lead to

uncertainty, which can affect confidence. For example, as described by a sergeant, “I

rather make a decision—if I’m wrong, I’m wrong; if I’m right, I’m right—but I’d rather

not let the people I supervise feel that I’m an ‘iffy’ type of supervisor.” This comment is

reflective of the subtheme decisiveness which appeared 15 times across five participants

81
(56%). The participants also spoke about the importance of leaders to be able to self-

reflect. They felt that it was important for leaders to know who they were as individuals

and as a leader.

Know thyself. The sergeants discussed the importance of knowing who they were

as an individual and that taking the time to evaluate their strengths and weakness, their

values and beliefs helped them to be effective leaders. Self-awareness is essential in order

for a leader to put the needs of others in front of their own needs, which is among the

Idealized Attributes of a transformational leader. Respondents raised this issue mostly by

way of anecdotal dialogue. For example, Sergeant 3 stated the following:

[The] three most important things you’re going to learn on this job [are], what you

could do physically, what you could do mentally, and what you could do legally. .

. . Once you know those three things, you could then start to critique yourself and

figure out what you’re supposed to be doing . . . as a leader. You need to know

that for yourself.

Self-awareness was elegantly expressed by Sergeant 2, “If you need help, you

need help.” Sergeant 4 added, “I think that, you know, we are three people here, who you

think you are, who others think you are, and who you really are, it’s a mix of those three

things.” Sergeant 5 said, “I mean there are other little things that go into, it being aware

of yourself.” Sergeant 9 asked, “Have I made mistakes going along the way? We all

make mistakes, I’ve made mistakes, but I’ve learned from those mistakes.” The concept

know thyself was raised a total of 16 times among six (67%) of the participants.

Socio-emotional support. This concept was raised by six participants (67%) a

total of 16 times, speaks to a sensitivity that reaches beyond police work into a person’s

82
state of feeling and therefore falls under the theme, Encourage the Heart. In fact, socio-

emotional support is a direct form of encouragement. Interview respondents spoke of

actions they took simply because they perceived that it would lift up the spirits of their

subordinates. An additional example of socio-emotional support was Sergeant 4’s

appreciation that

if we have an incident that occurred the night before, I try to make sure that it

ends successfully for the rest, nobody got hurt, everybody goes home. [At roll call

I’ll say,] “Everybody did a really good job on that,” and I try to point out the

things that we did exceptionally well.

Air of authority, control emotion, self-confidence. These three concepts refer to

the qualities that sergeants intend to project to their subordinates. Air of authority

specifies statements wherein respondents emphasized the importance of leaders in the

police department displaying the uniform in complete and proper fashion. References to

controlling one’s emotions and projecting self-confidence were other ways in which

respondents typically sought to set an example for their subordinates. An example of each

of these follows:

On air of authority:

The reason we shine our shoes and have the creases in our pants that are creased,

are sewn in . . . the buttons and the tie, and the tie bar—all these things are to

project to somebody else a presence. Well it is no different when you’re

projecting, what you’re projecting to people on the street or projecting to people

that you live with basically, people that you are working with, and people who are

working for you now. (Sergeant 3)

83
On control emotion: “Lead by example with regards to uniform and behavior on the

street, . . . keeping your temper, keeping an even keel” (Sergeant 6). On self-confidence:

“You have to be confident in yourself, or express confidence. You have to show them

they can believe in you, they can trust you” (Sergeant 1). All together, these three

subthemes were raised 22 times by eight respondents.

Feedback and task significance. In their roles as leaders, the sergeants felt that an

effective leader was one who was capable of coaching, guiding and mentoring their

officers. The concept of feedback referred to providing counsel and direction. Many of

the participants spoke about spending time one-on-one with their subordinate. In their

roles as coaches and mentors the sergeants emphasized the importance of helping their

officers become proficient at executing certain task relevant to the position. Therefore,

task significance referred to a leader communicating to a subordinate the substantial

impact a task can have on the lives of other people, whether those people are within or

outside the organization.

The concepts of feedback and task significant were raised in six interviews (67%)

a total of 18 times. For example: During one observation in which a police officer was

fully engaged with a member of the public, I saw a sergeant gently pull the officer to the

side twice to provide him with simultaneous guidance. This was great teaching moment;

the officer not only learned the technical aspect of what had to be done, but the

interpersonal component and he received the feedback in the here and now. After the

event, the sergeant provided the officer the opportunity to debrief as to what had

happened; this reflection is critical to leadership development.

Close supervision. In order for the sergeants to provide appropriate and relevant

84
feedback it required a level of close supervision. However, the meaning of close

supervision was not viewed by the sergeants as micromanaging or some other negative

connotation. Instead the sergeants viewed close supervision as a supportive but watchful

behavior. It was described across participants as a sense of responsibility for their

positions as supervisors as well as looking for the opportunity to educate subordinates.

This concept was raised within the context of policing generally viewed as demanding a

high sense of responsibility and morality. The sergeants reported close supervision or

monitoring of their subordinates as necessary to protect not only themselves but the

general public as well as the subordinates, and sometimes even the image of policing,

from what could amount to preventable and costly mistake. The following quotation from

Sergeant 1 makes reference to guarding the image of the police department:.

Police leadership . . . involves dealing with the public and the perception of the

police with the public. So I think we have to be a little more involved to make

sure that they’re showing the right view of the police offers to the public.

This subtheme was raised by seven interviewees (78%) a total of 13 times

Summary of findings for Research Question 1. Through in-depth interviews the

participants shared their thoughts on leadership. The interviews yielded 65 leadership

themes such as impression management, ambition, knowledge, and social emotional

support. A complete list of subthemes is exhibited in Appendix G. Further, the sergeants

described characteristics and concepts that they felt were critical in police leadership,

specifically in the role of sergeant.

85
Research Question 2

This research question sought to establish the extent to which police sergeants

practice the tenants of transformational leadership. The researcher used a three-pronged

approach: in-depth interviews, participant observations, and the administration of the

MLQ to answer this question.

Interviews and participant observations. The interviews as well as the direct

observations supported a finding that transformational leadership was in use within the Echo Bay

Police department. For the purpose of this study, the researcher will discuss in this section the five

qualities of transformational leadership with the highest frequency. The transformational leadership

characteristics: idealized attributes (150), individualized consideration (127), inspirational

motivation (108), idealized behavior (91) and model the way (79) were described by the

participants as they discussed the importance of leadership in policing at the first-line supervisors’

level.

Based on this finding, it can be assumed that these particular conceptual modes of

leadership are in practice to some degree among this police department’s first-line leaders. The

remaining five themes appeared with the lowest frequencies throughout the interview texts, namely:

Challenge the Process, Intellectual Stimulation, Enable Others to Act, Idealized Influence /

Charisma, and Encourage the Heart.

Table 4.2 presents the relative frequencies with which these themes occurred in the

interviews. By ranking these 10 transformational leadership qualities themes from highest to lowest,

we can get a picture of how the sergeants in this study practice transformational leadership. Figure

4.1 shows the frequency that transformational leadership qualities were expressed graphically, in

the form of a bar graph.

86
 Idealized attributes and idealized behavior. This characteristic of

transformational leadership refers to a leader who is ethical, trustworthy, respectable, and

puts the needs of other before his or her own (Bass & Bass, 2008). Across participants

this transformational leadership quality was identified 150 times. The other major

subthemes that fell under this transformational leadership quality were authenticity,

approachability, high intellect, and common sense. Participants discussed how their

leadership qualities are sometimes modeled after their own past or present supervisors.

The two subthemes, (a) model other leaders and (b) seek advice, were used to code

statements referring to two different modes of learning from those more experienced than

oneself in order to attain a broader understanding and ultimately practice of leadership in

one’s own thinking and activities. Just as analytical thinkers are able to develop and own

idealized attributes through a thinking process, so too must idealized attributes be

developed through modeling and seeking advice from others. As reported by Sergeant 1,

modeling is important in the line of work. “You want to get [advice from] your

lieutenants because they’ve been around long before you were and they might have dealt

with the same type of issue.”

87
Table 4.2

Frequency That Sergeant’s Transformational Leadership Qualities and Subthemes Were

Expressed

MLQ Main Theme Subtheme n F %

Individualized Consideration 9 34 5
Active Listening 5 13 2
Coaching approach 8 35 5
Guidance 6 10 1
Know and Use Staff Skill variety 2 4 1
Mentoring 7 26 3
Provide Feedback 5 8 1
Task significance 2 10 1
Versatility in management styles 1 1 0
Encourage the Heart 7 20 3
Close supervision 7 13 2
Socio-emotional support 6 15 2
Inspirational Motivation / 4 8 1
Inspire Shared Vision
Ambition 8 29 4
Autodidact 6 10 1
Disseminate information 2 3 0
High performer 4 10 1
Initiative 6 16 2
Intrinsic Motivation 4 6 1
Job Satisfaction 6 8 1
Optimism 1 1 0
Participative Leadership 4 9 1
Task identity 7 9 1
Intellectual Stimulation 3 5 1
Hands-On Training 3 3 0
Practice 3 3 0
Challenge the Process [No subthemes] 2 9 1

88
Table 4.2 (cont.)
Main Theme Subtheme n F %
Enable Others to Act 2 4 1
Autonomy 6 11 1
Observe 4 5 1
Trust 3 3 0
Model the Way 6 21 3
Air of authority 2 2 0
Appearance is Significant 3 4 1
Control emotion 4 9 1
Disciplining Officers 5 6 1
Effective Communication 7 12 2
Fulfill Duties by the Book 3 6 1
Readiness for Leadership Role 4 12 2
Self-confidence 6 11 1
Total 748 100
Note. Statistics for main themes are presented only for the occurrences of these themes

directly in interview texts. Rather, here, they do not represent all related subthemes, but

general references to the theme concepts themselves. Themes and subthemes occurred in

varying frequencies and saturation across interviews. Thus, they are presented here

showing both the number (n) of interviews in which they were raised and the overall

frequency (f) with which they were raised. Percentages (%) are of the total number

frequency of all themes and subthemes in this particular grouping.

89
Figure 4.1. Practice of Transformational Leadership Qualities Ranked in Rank Order by

Frequency.

Individualized consideration. This characteristic of transformational leadership

deals with the idea of extending oneself in such a way that goes beyond the professional

relationship or supervisor-supervisee relationship between two or more staff. As

described by Sergeant 3:

And it [leadership] is a lot of responsibility and we [sergeants] have to understand

as leaders . . . where they’re [subordinates] are coming from, the people that you

want to lead, whether they’re older than you, younger than you, , , , I can actually

lead people that , , , might be a brand new cop, but thirty years of age with two

kids and with all the other baggage , , , and all the other things that you have that

90
 you might not expect a rookie to have. You think every rookie comes on [the job]

who’s 21 years old living at home, no problems. Well that’s not true either... one

of the other things that I do is learn who my people are and really make them

understand that I’m here to help them. I’m not here to cover up for them, and I’m

not here to you know wipe their noses, but I’m here to help them, so that could

mean here on the job I can carry a [inaudible] for you, no problem. It was a

sensitivity or regard observed during many tours when the researcher shadowed

the sergeants as they conducted business. Individualized consideration was the

most common theme applying to the definition of leadership.

Across participants this quality of transformational leadership was identified 128

times. Overall, sergeants saw the benefits of approaching each subordinate—and possibly

more generally, each human being—with respect to differences between themselves and

others. To highlight, individual consideration is one instance where the sergeant made a

traffic stop and allowed the officer to make the arrest. This approach allowed the credit

for the arrest to go to the patrol officer. The following observation was among the many

examples the researcher watched unfold and that was consistent with what was expressed

by respondents during the interview.

Sergeant 9 explained that leaders have to take the time to know their officers. For

example:

I’d be clouding your opinion of somebody if I turn about and say Officer X is a

problem child. That’s for me to learn as a first-line supervisor. So I can’t turn

around and say this is what this one does. . . . I need to supervise to learn that. . . .

91
 To sum it up, have an open mind, an objective mind of the people you’re going

[to] first supervise

Inspirational motivation. Inspirational motivation was used in this study to refer

to a leader who displays and exudes optimism, arouses goal-directed action, and

motivates with values-based visions of success. The following concepts were exemplified

by the sergeants:

Certainly the way people talk to their complainants or their victims is one

thing. . . . The greatest officer will really handle all aspects of the call and do a

thorough investigation in all aspects of the call. . . . When they go on a burglary

team, they’ll not only interview the complainant, the victim of the burglary, but

they will remember to do things like interview all the neighbors. . . . You want to

interview neighbors on each side or the front and the back. . . . The really good

officer will remember that there are different facets to every call and remember to

complete up your investigation. . . . You have to really make sure that you

document everything that we do, for . . . reasons like liability issues or court and

stuff like that, so your great officer is actually almost like. (Sergeant 2)

Model the way. Model the way refers to a leader who seeks to set a high example

while maintaining a clear understanding of ethics and values (Kouzes & Posner 2007).

Specifically, model the way is a critical conduit to teaching skills that are not easily

taught in a classroom setting. It assumes a level of “practiced wisdom” that is best shared

in a natural environment. These observations were made without actual participation by

the researcher. It was clear during every observation that the public owns the Echo Bay

Police Department, in that they felt they could request help and expected to receive it in a

92
competent manner. Concurrently patrol officers and the sergeants saw themselves as

public servants with the emphasis on service. As observed by the researcher, every call

and or request was taken seriously and processed in the context of the Echo Bay

department motto (modified to ensure anonymity) that “Every citizen deserves to be

helped and we are committed to deliver help effectively.”

Sergeant 6 offered several examples of modeling the way:

[Leadership is] providing a good example of what you expect people to do in their

position as a cop. I mean, everything else just flows from that, you know, doing a

good job yourself and lead by example. . . . Lead by example with regards to

uniform and behavior on the street, [for example], keeping your temper, keeping

an even keel, you know, ’cause that’s what people expect when cops show up

they don’t expect you to get all excited, they expect you to make it under control,

not to join into the chaos. . . . Just providing an example on how to do it right and

you know, but again, I mean little things like showing up to work on time, the

right uniform you know, being squared away is leading by example.

Low-frequency transformational leadership qualities of items. Lower

frequency is defined as having occurred in the fewest interviews and as having occurred

the fewest times. At the lowest end was enable other to act, which surfaced in two

interviews and came up four times, next was challenge the process, which occurred with

the lowest frequency meaning that it showed in two interviews and came up nine times,

and finally Intellectual Stimulation, which came up in three interviews five times.

Challenge the process. When sergeants discussed active opportunity seeking for

themselves and their teams or referred to calculated risk-taking in order to innovate or

93
initiate a change, they were demonstrating the theme challenge the process. Some of the

sergeants felt that for their roles to evolve within the organization they needed to be

included in the policy-making process. However, that would require a shift in thinking

within the higher ranks of this police department. This point was highlighted by Sergeant

4, who said the following:

Policing is a difficult thing because people [think that], police are brave and they

do all those different things, but when it comes to real effective policy making

decisions they’re very scared, because if you make a mistake, not that somebody

is going to die, . . . but make an overall policy change for your department and

crime goes up there’s going to be a problem, you know. So people [the rank] want

to do the same things over and over, and over, and that’s why it’s going to be

difficult for them to see front-line managers as real management, cause nobody

wants to relinquish that authority. Even though everybody talks about the

delegation of responsibility, they’re only going to do it so much they’re not going

to give you the responsibility of, we’re not going to give the front-line supervisor

the responsibility of, unless he’s in a unit that has to do it, you know. [If the]

sergeant is head of property theft unit then he’s going to make the policy for how

property theft works, but somebody like me, you know, they’re not going to let

me make a policy for how they patrol, that’s going to be the captain’s job. You

know.

This theme appeared a total of nine times in two interviews (22%), where eight of those

occurrences of the theme occurred in one interview and once occurred in another

interview.

94
 Intellectual stimulation. This transformational leadership characteristic refers to

leadership that touches subordinates’ creativity, eliciting innovations or solutions within a

safe and supportive atmosphere. The following subthemes exemplify some aspect of this

theme, while perhaps not capturing the theme in its entirety. The theme itself was

identified five times in three interview texts.

Hands-on training, practice. These two concepts were raised as a necessary

complement to classroom training. Hands-on training generally refers to supervisors

providing their subordinates with opportunities to learn tasks by completing them while

guided by the supervisor. Practice refers to supervisors providing their subordinates with

the opportunities to repeat hands-on training so as to master the task. For example, hands-

on training and practice are both mentioned in the interview with Sergeant 9: “your

practical application is only going to be coming from hands-on and time in the rank to get

it accomplished and to learn it.” Sergeants made mention of these two subthemes a total

of six times in six interviews.

In sum there was evidence that tenets of transformational leadership, as defined

by Bass and Kouzes and Posner, were in use at the Echo Bay police department. This was

supported by both the musing of the sergeants as well as observed in action.

Transactional leadership characteristic. The MLQ painted the picture of

sergeants being equally transformational and transactional at the 55th percentile, As

discussed, the MLQ measures the full range leadership model therefore provides

information on all three leadership styles. Within transactional leadership, contingent

reward, management by exception passive and active are processed. Aligned with the

transactional leadership findings are the interviews which revealed that only one sergeant

95
identified themes related to transactional leadership. The two subthemes of contingent

reward and discipline as motivation was identified by one participant a total of four

times. Also noted by the researcher was the fact that neither laissez faire or management

by exception: active/passive was not identified by any of the participants. The next

section examines the findings of the MLQ.

Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire. The MLQ was included as part of the

survey that was administered to 14 sergeants. The MLQ5X software automatically

calculated each respondent’s subscore (See Appendix H). Using the MLQ manual (Bass

& Bass, 2008), these subscores were given a norm-referenced percentile ranking. The

overall MLQ results indicated that the sergeants as a group were equally transformational

and transactional. This is contraindicated by both the in-depth interviews and direct

observations. Table 4.3 provides the results for sergeant respondents in terms of MLQ

percentile ranks.

At a glance, the percentile ranks for this sample’s transformational subscores

produce a mean of a summary percentile rank of 55. The corresponding mean for the

transactional grouping of subscores is 55. The two lowest ranks components of

transformational leadership were idealized influence (behaviors) and intellectual

stimulation. More clearly, perhaps, is the fact that laissez-faire style leadership is quite

low, at the 20th percentile, in comparison to the other two styles measured by the MLQ.

This leads to the fairly easy conclusion that relative to transformational and transactional

styles, laissez-faire leadership styles are infrequently used by the sergeants in this study.

96
Table 4.3

MLQ Subscale Percentile Ranks for Sergeants as Leaders

Leadership Style MLQ Subscale n M SD Percentile

Transformational Idealized Influence 11 3.33 0.39 60
(Attributes)

Idealized Influence 14 2.84 0.62 30

(Behaviors)

Inspirational 14 3.01 0.60 60

Motivation

Intellectual 14 2.84 0.63 50

Stimulation

Individual 14 3.40 0.53 70

Consideration

Extra Effort 14 2.88 0.67 60

Effectiveness 14 3.37 0.49 50

Satisfaction with the 14 3.39 0.59 50

leadership

Transactional Contingent Reward 14 3.22 0.64 60

Management-by- 14 2.24 0.82 70

Exception: Active

Management-by- 14 0.75 0.43 40

Exception: Passive

Laissez-Faire 12 0.13 0.20 20

Summary of findings for Research Question 2. The most significant finding in

this section was the sergeants’ perception of their leadership style as reported on the

MLQ. The finding suggested that contrary to the MLQ scores, which indicated that

sergeants were equally transactional and transformational, the in-depth interviews and

direct observations revealed evidence of transformational leadership taking place at a

97
higher level. Looking at the results from the interviews all together, it becomes clear

which transformational leadership concepts were raised at high frequencies. For example,

individualized consideration was mentioned frequently, but challenge the process wasn’t

often mentioned by sergeants as they discussed how they define leadership. How they

define leadership seems to coincide with the types of leaders they are or attempt to be in

their own practice as police sergeants.

With 127 occurrences, individualized consideration was the most common theme

applying to the definition of leadership. Next most common among the themes that go to

define leadership was idealized influence (behaviors), followed by model the way, both

of which describe the many actions leaders in the police department can choose to do just

for the purpose of building up the other members of the team. Together, these two themes

represent a selfless, reliable, thoughtful, motivated leadership that upholds a sense of

integrity.

In the middle-frequency range for this study’s sample of interview data, are the

four remaining themes, idealized attributes, idealized influence / charisma, encourage the

heart, and inspirational motivation / inspire a shared vision. Each of these showed a solid

presence throughout the interviews and among all interviewees.

Research Question 3

This research question sought to determine how police departments develop the

leadership competencies of their police sergeants. The researcher used a three-pronged

approached of survey data, participant observation, and interviews to answer this

question.

98
 Interviews and participant observation. The purpose of the in-depth interviews

was to examine the sergeants’ perception of the professional development opportunities

afforded to them. The data from the interviews also offered additional contexts to the

responses provided by the surveys. As discussed by research participants, the

characteristics of a good sergeant included qualities such as honesty, self-awareness,

flexibility, patience, and being analytical and capable of exercising good judgment. The

participants of this study were in agreement with sentiments expressed by Baker (2009)

who stated that sergeants are called upon to engage in complex roles which require that

they master both strategic and tactical processes. Therefore, this section examined the

participants’ perception of how the Echo Bay Police Department developed the

leadership competencies of their first-line supervisors.

The participants discussed their thoughts, feelings, and experiences regarding

professional development. What emerged was a tapestry of ideas on what works and is

necessary, what does not work or is unnecessary, and desires for new programs or

improvements to existing ones. In a prioritized fashion sergeants reported, based on

frequency of reported themes, that coaching was a critical way through which they

develop leadership competencies. The other way was through mentoring.

Themes relating to Research Question 3. Sergeants also reported that more

professional development was desired although for the most part they felt satisfied with

the quality and frequency of professional development opportunities offered. Seven

interviews contained statements that the status quo in professional and leadership

development opportunities are adequate, satisfactory, or do not otherwise present

barriers. This theme was raised a total of 29 times. Interestingly, statements expressing

99
the opposite sentiment occurred 33 times in eight of the interviews (89%). Clearly, there

were mixed feelings on the topic of the adequacy or availability of professional

development opportunities. Examples of professional/career development opportunities

are as follow:

Job rotation as a form of professional development. Job rotation was described

as the opportunity for police officers to work in different units/ specialized department

within the organization prior to becoming a sergeant. Although there was not a formal

process for assigning police officers to different areas, they were allowed to apply for a

transfer if an opening was available. Most of the participants referred to this as “luck.”

Sergeant 7 provided the following as an example of job rotation:

Getting a well-rounded officer and letting him [her] get some exposure into

different units and keep moving them. . . . [There is] just so much information that

as a patrolman you have no time to do it, but if they [the officers] all have that

training and know how other units work it will make them that much more

rounded as an officer that much more informed as a sergeant hands down.

Another example of job rotation was reported by the Sergeant 3:

I think that when you’re identified as a sergeant candidate . . . they should almost

immediately scoop you out of what you’re doing and put you in as many different

tasks as possible, because I think it builds credibility with other people. . . . I

learned [how to display weapons for evidence photographs] when I was in the

drug task force because we had to do that kind of stuff.

Diverse and relevant life experience as a form of professional development.

Sergeant 3 expressed the idea that experience was an important factor in an officer’s

100
leadership. “So the more experiences that you can bring as a leader to the people that

you’re leading, the better they’re going to be because you can teach them more.

Coaching approach, guidance, and mentoring as a form of professional

development. A cross analysis on participant response revealed three central themes

coaching approach, guidance, and mentoring. They each were identified as being critical

to the leadership and professional development of police officers and sergeants. As

indicated by Swanson and Holton (2009), coaching involves senior managers that work

with individuals on a one to one to: (a) clarify performance goals, (b) recommend

specific behaviors needed to improve performance, (c) serve as role models in

demonstrating professional behavior, and (d) help to focus individuals on the result of the

a job and what it takes to achieve those results. All together, these concepts were

identified in all nine interviews (100%) a total of 61 times.

The coaching approach was used by Sergeant 7 in his relations with subordinates:

And it actually helped my relationship with my people because they saw I wasn’t

going to take over their call every time. . . . I’d get there—“I’m just here. . . . You

do what you got to do and I’m just here to make sure it gets done in the way it’s

supposed to get done, and you’re doing the job.”. . . . If you do a bad job, I’m not

going to rip you in front of everybody else: “Come on, we got to go talk. This is

what should have happened.”

Sergeant 1 showed exemplary use of guidance when he said:

Sometimes, you see they missed something and you can go back and say, “What

about this?” Give them another way they could have done it. So if there’s a

101
 similar incident, they’ll know what to do, do it better. Not that what they did was

wrong, they could do it even better though.

Participants emphasized that the type of guidance and mentoring afforded to an officer

was crucial in the development of one’s leadership style and professional/personal

growth.

Sergeant 4 expressed his mentoring style in this way:

Cops are a different breed when it comes to mentoring and . . . I realize that they

do mentor, some of them are very good, [and] some of them will tell you [what to

do]. [However] I’ve had supervisors that are mentoring you [but] not in the

traditional sense, they’re doing it the cop way. . . . They’ll tell you why they’re

doing things. [For example] I had one supervisor and my buddy and I we were

with him . . . doing an investigation and he ordered us to go and grab the garbage

from in front of this house, it was out at the curb . . . and he said go get the

garbage we’re going to do an investigation, I’ll show you how we do it and we

went and we grabbed all the garbage bags, threw them in the back of our car, we

brought it back here and he said alright start going through it and let’s see what

we get. We went through the garbage and we developed a lot of information from

the garbage. . . . So that’s mentoring. . . . I mean, while you’re doing that it’s not a

very enjoyable experience but he’s laughing and [we learned]. Finally sergeants’

felt that the development of leadership qualities relied on diverse and lengthy

experience both deep and wide, personal and professional.

Survey data: professional development opportunities. The professional/career

development survey was completed by 14 sergeants. These items provided insight into

102
how the police department develops leadership competencies of its sergeants. The

responses from the questionnaire were analyzed using percentages and basic arithmetic.

Nine of the 14 sergeants (64%) thought that the Echo Bay police department had a formal

career plan. Out of the five who thought the department did not have a formal career plan,

four (80%) reported that it did not influence their decision to stay with the department.

There was a wide range of reporting as it related to the professional benefits from

participating in career development activities. In order of criticality and based on the

number of respondents, three types of benefits emerged as the top-three rated

professional benefits—educational incentives, job rotation, and career counseling while

training incentives were the least. Next to last were three activities: job enlargement, job

enrichment, and self-assessment. Six (43%) of the respondents felt that there was existing

policy or bargaining language that impacts opportunities to participate in any of the

following activities: job rotation, career counseling, career planning, educational

incentives, training incentives, job enlargement, job enrichment, and self-assessment.

Similarly, six (43%) of the respondents thought that there were financial incentives to

participate in professional development activities. In speaking to influences on their

decision to participate in career development, sergeants reported the development of

skills for future advancement as the most critical influence, this was seconded by both the

fact that it was personally rewarding and improved overall performance..

Interestingly, the sergeants reported the last influence was that financial rewards

are worthwhile. Six sergeants reported job rotation opportunities as one of the reasons

they remained at the Echo Bay police department. Eleven (78%) sergeants thought that

career developmental activities impacted the promotional process while nine (64%)

103
thought participation in career development activities should impact the promotional

process. Finally, seven officers (50%) experienced the professional benefits by

participating in career development activities.

Summary of findings for Research Question 3. In conclusion, both the in-depth

interviews and the questionnaire indicated that professional development opportunities

and career development seem to be offered at Echo Bay police department. What seems

to be at play is the fact that some of the professional development activities occurred

spontaneously as part of an informal process. Wycoff (1992) spoke to this phenomenon

where sergeants spent less than 11% of their time with their subordinates. This study’s

findings suggest that police sergeants feel that while formal professional training is

valuable that they would benefit from informal experiential training as well. This was

substantiated through both conversations and observations of sergeants at work. Parallel

to that Baker (2008) reported the critical training function that sergeants play in

developing their supervisees. Based on the overall reporting it appeared that the sergeants

agree with the importance of the training function. They spoke to the idea of having been

developed through a number of means such as mentoring and shadowing, job rotation,

and tuition reimbursement as a mean of incentivizing officers to be more educated. It was

also clear that they engaged in development activities with their officers. They not only

reported this phenomena, but this researcher observed it. In one instance, one sergeant

was observed on a crime scene standing back and allowing the officer to perform the

arrest without interfering or hovering over him. At the end of the contact, the sergeant

performed an event autopsy, identifying what was done well and what could be improved

104
on. They even played a different scenario that could have necessitated different actions.

The officer seemed to be pleased with the counsel from the sergeant.

The Echo Bay police department has a number of informal methods to develop

officers, such as tuition reimbursement, which allows officers to take college-level

classes at no expense to them. The Echo Bay Police Department has a training

department, staffed with two to three full-time officers (lieutenant, sergeant, and training

officer), that offers a variety of training on different topics for different groups (e.g.,

patrol officers, specialized officers, supervisors). However it became clear that the

department relied heavily on an informal system of professional development outside of

their training unit therefore standardization is lacking.

Looking at the results from the interviews all together, it becomes clear which

professional development concepts were raised most frequently and how they relate to

transformational leadership. The sergeants’ discussions of their leadership development

experiences and their ideas about programs for developing leadership competencies

provide a starting point for future directions.

Table 4.4 illustrates the relative frequencies with which all of these themes

occurred in the interviews. With one possible exception, professional development

opportunities are satisfactory—the most frequently occurring themes related to

developing leadership competencies were the informal methods that get passed down

from one generation to the next. As it seems to work and be well received among the

study sergeants, this may indicate a mode in which leadership development programs

would best operate.

105
Table 4.4

Theme Frequencies for Research Question 3

Theme n f %
At least several years of experiences of diverse
and relevant lead to broader knowledge and
develop leadership qualities 8 21 15
College experience helps in policing profession 4 5 4
Desires for changes to current professional
development opportunities 8 33 24
Formal Shadowing or Mentoring Program is
needed / desired 3 5 4
Job enlargement exists 5 12 9
Job enlargement is desired 1 1 1
Job enrichment exists 2 2 1
Job enrichment is desired 1 3 2
Job Rotation exists 4 10 7
Job Rotation is desired 2 3 2
Leadership training for police officers is
important 6 8 6
Satisfaction with current professional
development opportunities 7 29 21
Task Variety 2 2 1
Tuition Reimbursement 2 2 1
Total 136 100
Note. Themes and subthemes occurred in varying frequencies and saturation across

interviews. Thus, they are presented here showing both the number (n) of interviews in

which they were raised and the overall frequency (f) with which they were raised.

Percentages (%) are of the total number frequency of all themes and subthemes in this

particular grouping.

106
Research Question 4

The fourth research question sought to examine what were the major perceived

challenges faced by sergeants as they transition from patrol officers to first line

supervisors. The researcher used interviews to answer this question. The sergeants at the

Echo Bay Police Department raised nine themes that formed a picture of their perceptions of

their transitions from patrol officer to sergeant and some of the challenges associated with

their transition (See appendix I.). Some participants experienced this transition 10 or more

years ago, while others had experienced it as recently as a month prior to the date of the

interview.

Participants discussed their experiences as leaders, expressed their thoughts and

wishes regarding professional development for sergeants, and acknowledged their difficulties

in the transitional period. The themes from this category can be conceptualized as the

qualities that either aided in the transition from patrol officer to sergeant or developed during

the transitional period. Table 4.5 illustrates the challenges identified by the sergeants.

The top-two challenges for new sergeants as they transition from being a police

officer to a first line supervisor were: (a) supervising former colleagues and those who

had more time on the job, and (b) the lack of opportunity to develop supervisory skills

prior to becoming a sergeant.

107
Table 4.5

Theme Frequencies for Research Question 4

Themes n f %

Lack of Readiness for Leadership Role 4 3 6

On the Job Experience / Learning is Necessary 7 19 36

Patience 3 5 9

Supervising Former Colleagues is a challenge 9 24 45

Supervising staff with more job time is

challenging 1 2 4

Total 53 100

Note. Themes and subthemes occurred in varying frequencies and saturation across

interviews. Thus, they are presented here showing both the number (n) of interviews in

which they were raised and the overall frequency (f) with which they were raised.

Percentages (%) are of the total number frequency of all themes and subthemes in this

particular grouping.

Supervising former colleagues is a challenge, supervising staff with more job

time is challenging. Perhaps the most poignant of all the challenges inherent to this

particular police department is the fact that new sergeants found themselves in the

position of being in charge of subordinates who, previous to their promotion, had been

their peers and friends. It was noted by one interviewee that this is not the situation in all

police departments and may more often be a characteristic of smaller departments.

Similarly, ambitious officers may enter their supervisory roles early or

prematurely with the result that their underlings have much more on-the-job time and

108
experience than they have. This can work as a benefit, but it was cited in the context of

participants’ perceptions of their transitions to sergeant as a challenge. The challenges of

supervising former peers were described by Sergeant 8:

When [I] first became a sergeant, my toughest part was . . . you develop a lot of

friends as a police officer within the department. Now you get promoted and . . .

instead of being friends with these guys, you have to supervise them. Sometimes

being the supervisor isn’t pleasant: you have to discipline someone and write

someone up; they might lose time. Sometimes . . . you had to discipline a guy you

hung out with for years and had drinks with. So I think that was the toughest thing

to get over.

Sergeant 2 provided his view of the challenges of supervising more-senior officers when

he said:

I definitely think that supervising . . . people with a lot of years on the job—who

have significantly more than me—is a very big challenge because it’s very . . .

difficult . . . because [I] know guys who have been here twice as long as me and [I

am] their supervisor. It’s got to be a weird thing for them and it was a little, . . .

almost intimidating when I first got promoted.

A few participants described the process of becoming a sergeant in order to

provide the researcher with context as to the appointment process. A police officer at the

Echo Bay Police Department has to have an earned bachelor’s degree in addition to

meeting the department’s tenure requirement prior to taking the sergeants’ exam. The

process begins with the officer taking the sergeants’ exam and scoring well on it. They

also noted the internal process of selection was based on civil service rules which require

109
that a list be established and the top three scores are considered when a position becomes

available. The sergeants further noted that it was common to remain on the list for up to

two years. However, once you are appointed, you are immediately assigned sergeant

duties and responsibilities. New York State requires that all officers appointed to the

position of sergeant take a mandatory supervisory course. However, this course is offered

according to a schedule that is set by a police academy (that is designated and/or

accredited to give the course). For instance, a police officer can be appointed to sergeant

and not be scheduled to take the sergeant’s supervisory course until several months later.

A few sergeants reported that the appointment practices left little room for preparation.

This is exemplified by the following reflection.

Lack of readiness for leadership role. Some participants recalled their

transitions from patrol officer to sergeant and acknowledged that, in some way or ways,

they had not been ready for their leadership roles. However, that is not to say they were

ill-prepared, but that the new role was overwhelmingly different than expected. Sergeant

6 expressed it in this way:

You feel prepared [when you first become a sergeant] but then when you get into

it, you realize how little you are prepared . . . [going in.] You feel like you know

what you’re going to be doing, and then when the shoe was actually on your

foot . . . you feel sometimes you’re in over your head.

As a follow-up, the researcher wanted to know what the sergeants thought would help

address their feelings of not being prepared or perhaps what would make the transition

easier for newly appointed sergeants.

110
 Leadership training for police officers. Leadership training for police officers

was expressed as being an important component of professional development. A direct

question addressed to participants introduced this idea. Most respondents felt that

leadership training for police officers was important. The reasons varied. Some suggested

that broadening police officers’ perspectives enables them to better understand their

supervisors’ requests; others noted that police officers are necessarily leaders—and

require leadership training—in their own right. Finally, some felt that leadership training

should be integrated to the patrol officer experience so as to develop those who would

advance through the ranks. This would ease their transition. This theme occurred eight

times in six interview texts.

Formal shadowing or mentoring program. A desire was expressed among

participants for formal programming of leadership instruction, especially for those who

are soon to be promoted. Sergeant 8 said, “Shadowing the newly appointed supervisors

[is] very, very important, and it makes the transition easier from the patrol officer who

becomes the supervisor.

Summary findings for Research Question 4. The interviews pointed to the

inherent conflict of becoming a former colleague’s supervisor and the difficulty

associated with disciplining such person. Additionally, in a field where on-the-job

experience is perceived to be so critical, sergeants reported a high level of discomfort in

supervising those who may have more years of experience than they did. In reflection,

they wished to have had more leadership and sensitivity training in dealing with being

treated differently because of the sergeant’s stripes.

111
Summary of Overall Results

This research study of first-line supervisors within a police department consisted

of in depth interviews, participant observation and surveys. This study attempted to

answer some key questions dealing with leadership style, leadership development within

this police department, and the experiences of sergeants as they transition from police

officer to sergeants. The reported data were rich and nuanced. A frequency count was

done within as well as among the interviews. The MLQ and two other surveys were used

to collect demographic and career information. The surveys were administered to 14

police sergeants and 9 of the 14 participated in interviews. The researcher conducted

observations of 3 sergeants while on duty.

The findings seem to support that transformational leadership exists at some level

within the police department under study. It also appears that the leadership style of the

sergeants tended to be equally transactional and transformational, as reported by the

MLQ. However, the interviews as well as the observations leaned more toward the

transformational, as described in this section.

Leadership development takes many forms within this police department,

including a formal training course, however, there seems to be an informal set of

interactions that foster leadership but yet needs to be institutionalized in order to secure

the competencies needed for 21st-century policing.

The research participants reported a number of challenges during their transitions

from police officers to sergeants. They were particularly concerned with supervising

former colleagues and or friends as well as supervising people who may be more

112
experienced than they were. They felt ill prepared as their understanding of the sergeant’s

job was markedly different than their experience showed as they started their new jobs.

113
 Chapter 5: Discussion

Introduction

Research on organizational change in policing has maintained that first-line

supervisors are important to the implementation of new policies. Engel and Worden

(2003) found that past failures of particular strategies and structural changes were due in

part to lack of support among patrol supervisors. Scholars recognize the important role

that first-line supervisors play in law enforcement. First-line supervisors communicate

new expectations to officers and ensure that officers meet those expectations on the

street. They also facilitate implementation, provide organizational support, and exhort

officers to embrace the philosophy of new policies such as community policing. Overall,

however, the literature on police supervision is limited in scope. It fails to address

conceptual and empirical questions regarding first-line supervisors (Engel and Worden,

2003).

This study examined the leadership behavior of police sergeants through the

theoretical lens of transformational leadership Bass and Bass’ (2008) and the type of

professional development opportunities made available to them. The essential research

questions that guided the study were:

1. What are the self-reported and observed leadership styles and practices of

police sergeants at the Echo Bay police department?

2. To what extent do police sergeants practice the tenants of transformational

leadership?

114
 3. How do police departments develop the leadership competencies of their police

sergeants?

4. What are the sergeants’ perceptions of the challenges faced as they transition

from patrol officers to first-line supervisors?

This chapter will provide a full interpretation of the results detailed in Chapter 4

along with implications for policymakers and administrators who impact training and

professional development for law enforcement in the United States. In addition, this

chapter will include a discussion on the implications of the study, it’s findings,

limitations on the research, as well as recommendations for an actionable plan to improve

this police department and other similar departments. Finally, a comprehensive

conclusion of the entire process will be detailed to provide the reader an overview of the

entire research effort.

The research questions that guided the inquiry yielded the following results. In

response to Research Question 1, which examined the self-reported and observed

leadership styles and practices of police sergeants at the Echo Bay police department, the

MLQ revealed that the sergeants as a group were equally transformational and

transactional. However, the in-depth interviews and observations were aligned with the

transformational leadership findings. The transformational leadership characteristics

identified were: idealized attributes, individualized consideration, inspirational

motivation, idealized behavior, and model the way. This researcher further notes that the

Echo Bay Police Department created an environment where mentoring, coaching, and

modeling other leaders were used as a methods to develop the leadership competencies of

the first-line supervisors. The finding suggests that the police sergeants used

115
transformational leadership behaviors to help them transition into their supervisory

position. Last, the study highlighted the challenges faced by police sergeants as they

transition from police officer to first-line supervisor. Sergeants revealed that their biggest

struggles were finding ways to motivate and engage their subordinates and supervising

former colleagues. Sergeants further indicated the need for leadership training that

addressed the unique needs of police sergeants. Through the process of coding, 96 themes

and subthemes were used to identify patterns of leadership among first-line supervisors.

This includes their leadership behaviors and the leadership development opportunities

afforded to them. Findings from this research offer a framework for the development of

an actionable plan for policymakers and practitioners interested in developing leaders at

all levels within a public sector institution.

Implications of Study

This case study of transformational leadership in policing establishes a framework

for organizations that want to develop leaders through talent management initiatives.

Talent management is the process of facilitating the development and career progress of

highly talented and skilled individuals in the organization using formalized procedures,

resources, policies, and processes. The talent management process focuses on developing

employees for future leadership roles within the organization (Gay and Sims, 2007).

The process for career advancement in policing requires that police officers take

and pass an exam to move into a ranked position (sergeant, lieutenant, captain). However,

as discussed by the research participants, the position of sergeant requires skills that are

not measured by a test. Therefore, when a police officer is promoted to sergeant he/she

takes on a formal leadership role and inherits legitimate power within the organization. It

116
is this power that has been described as a great responsibility that has to be owned by the

person upon whom it is being bestowed. As noted by participants, individuals have to

want to take on the responsibility for themselves and their team in the role of sergeant,

and that is something for which you cannot be prepared by a test.. Two major

implications for policy makers include the upfront cost to form a talent management

system and a leadership development initiative for the 21st century. In light of current

economic constraints, these investments do pay for themselves. However, the public

seems to have little appetite for proactive spending in human resource management and

infrastructure. This is as true for infrastructure in the form of the country’s roads,

highways, and bridges as for the education and law enforcement systems.

There is a call for leadership development within police departments in order to

meet the needs of the community and those of police officers so as to move officers from

being transactional to transformational while keeping the community safe. The very

nature of police work is transactional and often the experience occurs under less than

ideal circumstances. A transformational approach will go a long way to increase the

public confidence as police officers move from serving the community to partnering with

it. Long term, the benefits of transformational approach augment that of the transactional

model. The findings appear to indicate the following issues.

This research contributed to the discussion of policing by looking at leadership as

opposed to management. The research occurred in a police department that had not had

undergone such an exploratory activity.. It focused in an area of the police command

seldom studied but yet understood as critical to crime prevention and safe communities.

The contribution was also in terms of the qualitative model as studies of leadership tend

117
to be quantitative leaving key and nuanced areas obscure. The research setting was a city

within a suburb which has distinct characteristics. The study had a participant observation

feature that enrich the in-depth interviews and allowed for a here and now analysis and

cross analysis of the verbal reporting. Studies of police departments seldom include

embedded researcher based on policy, risk, and the fact that outsiders are rarely permitted

to watch as independent observers of police work. This researcher, as non-police officer,

was observing the interaction through the lens of a community resident, a criminal justice

professional, and an academic. As indicated by this study, the transition periods for police

officers tended to be highly stressful as new sergeants were called to supervise former

colleagues. The literature and research point to leadership development occurring at the

highest level of the police command and the lack of leadership development in the lower

level of the organization; it is highly desirable to provide such training to patrol officers.

The literature further suggests the need for research at the sergeant’s level and this study

helps fills the gap in the literature.

In the context of a highly stressful job and the need to keep order and enforce the

rules, sensitivity training and effective supervision workshops are needed to deal with

topics such as: motivating subordinates, employee engagement, disciplining and creating

and maintaining professional boundaries. Opportunities for promotions have lessened

because of budgetary reasons, which will delay appointment to sergeants and lengthen

the years of experience but may be a disincentive for good police work to occur.

Therefore, providing leadership development to the rank and file will enhance overall

performance even as police departments make use of less formal supervisory positions.

To the untrained eye police departments are mechanical and bureaucratic organizations

118
where the rule of law drives the behaviors of those involved, however despite this

commonly held sense, police departments and more specifically police officers on a daily

basis make decisions that can change someone’s life might it be the decision to arrest

someone or not or to engage in a high speed chase or not. In fact, Bass (1985) seems to

indicate that transactional leadership is correlated with mechanistic organizations.

Subsequent studies by Singer and Singer use that proposition as their hypothesis in a

study of Taiwanese companies including a police department. When using the MLQ,

police sergeants were more transformational than transactional; this was different in that

this study found them to be equally so. This is mediated by the fact that when looking at

specific transformational and transactional factors that was not the case. The fact that

these two studies provided no definitive direction as to police officers and police

sergeants’ leadership styles dictates further study. The culture of organization is said to

be within the control of its leader and this police department is no different.

It has been reported by Masood, Dani, Burns, and Blackhouse (2006) that a more

organic culture in which the culture is termed situationally weak (meaning that

subordinates have ample discretion) is the preference of transformational leaders. In

police work, police officers, by virtue of their autonomy related to their work setting

which is constantly changing, must be able to use reasoned judgment and discretion.

Therefore a transformational leader would be preferable in the police context. While this

study did not specifically address the issue of culture it is understood that culture is

driven primarily by the leader. It would seem that one can deduce that this department, by

virtue of its willingness to treat the community as its partner, by opening its door to this

researcher coupled with the observations made, does have features that suggest that the

119
“situation is weak” and that it is no surprise that the sergeants were found to be more

transformational than transactional. This is counterintuitive because policing tends to be

bound by rules and regulations and the very nature of all police contact is transactional.

That the commissioner granted this researcher access seems to be displaying one of the

tenants of transformational leadership, that of transparency, or perhaps authentic

leadership and its relational transparency and self-awareness (Walumbwa, Aviolio,

Gardner, Wernsing, & Peterson, 2008) This is not to be confused with being a system of

anarchy, where there is no order, but one of controlled chaos, where the actors are clear

as to the mission, philosophy, best practices, but yet are allowed to modify

implementation and execution to meet the needs of the community.

Policy implications. There are serious implications to this researcher’s findings:

1. The need for the police department to adopt a policy where appointments to the

position of sergeant are done in conjunction with the mandatory supervisory training

course should be recognized. In addition, making such training available more regularly

may be the first step in addressing this issue. The department must recognize that a test

for a supervisory position may be limiting the pool of applicants and explore other means

of improving selection, in the same manner that colleges assign certain weight to SAT

scores but might take in consideration extracurricular activities.

2. The department should work with the union leadership to highlight the benefits

of a system that promotes based on a meritocracy as attempts are being made in

education in both New York and New Jersey.

120
 3. The department should institute an early assessment of leadership potential

among officers at the two-year mark, before they become eligible to take the sergeant

exam at the three-year tenure point.

4. Work collaboratively with the union will provide a number of job enlargement,

job enrichment, and job rotation opportunities.

5. The way in which training is delivered should be rethought so as to include

leadership, and a creative and institutionalized means to deliver solid coaching,

mentoring, and tutoring should be explored.

6. A process should be developed whereby representatives of all five primary

levels of management (sergeants, lieutenants, captains, chief, and commissioner) within a

police department meet to discuss succession planning and draft a strategic plan to

educate the rank and file in the business of policing at the tactical and strategic level.

Limitations

The use of a case study model was by its very nature limiting and may have the

intended effect of not having a high level of transferability and generalizability. As noted

in Chapter 3, the total population was 24 sergeants, 14 of the 24 took the MLQ, 9 agreed

to in-depth interviews, and 3 agreed to be observed. In the context of this specific police

department generalizability is possible although it should be viewed with caution. Within

the police community as a whole, more caution should be exercised given that the studied

population was too small and not randomly chosen so as to ensure a great degree of

generalizability In general, the design of qualitative studies tends to lessen

generalizability; such research is often not intended for that purpose, but to gain a deeper

understanding of a phenomena. This study provided a very textured and full

121
understanding of the leadership styles of the sergeants, clear data on the leadership

development process at Echo Bay and was specific as to the challenges the sergeants

confronted during their transition from police officers. It stands to reason that future

research may build on these findings by more directly exploring the leadership style of

sergeants to determine if mentoring, coaching, and tutoring are common practices and if

supervising former colleagues and disciplining supervisees and those with more

experience are areas of concern. Although this study did not lend itself to generalizability

it did support findings from studies conducted by Schafer (2009) and Singer and Singer

(1990). A mixed method approach with a larger sample size for the case study might

allow for generalizability. Further, departments of similar size, similarly situated, could

profit from the lessons of this study. Lastly, the time frame within which the study had to

be completed presented another limitation.

Delimitation. The researcher made a number of choices to get to the essential

questions and, in the process, delimited the study in a number of ways. As reported in

Chapter 3, the study took place in a suburban county that had 43 police departments. The

research context was in a suburban area; therefore, the challenges of policing in such

setting may impact the behaviors of sergeants when compared to their counterparts in

rural and urban areas. Further, the police department studied was a midsize organization,

therefore small and large police departments may have sergeants with different spans of

control and autonomy.

Due to the researcher’s inability to gain access to those police department and

time constraints for data collection, the researcher decided to use one police department

as opposed to five or six. In an effort to triangulate the data the researcher held a focus

122
group with sergeants from another department. However, due to time constraints this data

was not reported. This delimitation resulted in a small number of study participants.

There were 24 police sergeants in the department, with varied backgrounds. The gender,

chronological age, marital status, years of experience as a patrol officer, experience

within different sectors within policing, the educational experience ranging from a

bachelor’s to a doctorate resulted in a selection of sergeants that may or may not reflect

similarly situated sergeants in other police departments. Also the researcher could not

assess the leadership styles of first-line supervisors across multiple departments or

evaluate whether or not transformational leadership was evident in other police

departments. As noted, the major interest was to explore the experiences of sergeants as

front-line supervisors as opposed to the entire command structure of a police department,

which would include lieutenants, captains, chiefs, and commissioners. However, this

delimitation did not allow the researcher to examine to what extent did transformation

leadership exists within the entire Echo Bay Police Department.

Recommendations

Based on the findings of this study, it would seem that police departments would

be prudent to institute systems to enhance the leadership competencies of all police

officers starting with patrol and up through the ranks.

Institute a talent management program. A formal talent management structure

could improve the quality of the transition of police officers from a nonsupervisory role

to sergeants. The Echo Bay Police department would benefit from a formalized talent

management approach to include the following components. (a) action/experiential

learning which is a process by where individuals are assigned tasks/projects to work on

123
for a period of time in order to develop certain skills/competencies. A 360-degree

evaluation which is a survey and/or interview process designed to obtain feedback from

those who work and interact with an individual on a regular basis. Typically, feedback is

obtained from self-evaluation and from the individual’s leaders, peers, direct reports, and

internal or external customers. An assessment is the process of reviewing and appraising

employees regarding their future potential in the organization based on factors such as

past performance, leadership ability, learning agility, advancement potential,

advancement desire, competencies, and skill sets. Last, coaching /mentoring is a process

designed to help individuals identify and achieve their professional objectives within the

context of an organization’s values and goals. An early talent management identifier may

go a long way to begin providing leadership development opportunities to those who may

be interested as well as all officers given the new complexity of police work.

The findings suggest that the challenges raised by police sergeants, such as

improving employee engagement and motivation, can be addressed by focused leadership

development that incorporates a formal structure of leadership training, assessing and

enhancing supervisory skills, coaching, and job enhancement. Institutionalizing these

processes would ensure standardization and uniformity to a necessary aspect of work that

is both unpredictable and dangerous.

Future research. Based on these findings it would seem that further research of

first-line supervisors using a mixed-method approach would go a long way in exploring

the extent to which transformational leadership practices are being utilized. Research in

small and large departments capture the scope of their duties as well as determine what

mechanism is used to develop sergeants would contribute greatly to the police

124
community. Additional research using a 360-degree feedback process, where the self-

assessment of the sergeants would be triangulated with those of their supervisors,

colleagues, and subordinates, would provide data to deliver targeted training and

development. This may help in cutting expensive training that is offered in a diffused

fashion. Research that used an experimental approach, with a pretest, a leadership

training intervention, and a posttest, would aid in assessing if leadership training

significantly changes the leadership capacity of those exposed to it. Using a longitudinal

approach, it could be determined if those who receive a specific type of transformational

leadership rise to higher command post at a higher or lower rate than those who did not.

Research to determine if transformational leadership and transactional leadership have

similar or different outcomes based on a police department culture would clarify the

efficacy of either model. Quantitative research would be useful to measure the

relationship between race, gender, and education and the extent to which these factors are

predictive of their use transformational leadership. Research to explore whether the

challenges confronted by the sergeants at Echo Bay are common to other police

departments would be helpful.

Conclusions

This study contributed to the literature by presenting empirical evidence for

leadership development in the public sector, specifically in policing at the sergeants’

level. According to Van Wart (2003), public administration scholars should begin to

develop and test comprehensive leadership models that integrate transactional and

transformational elements and that account for various situational variables inherent in

the public context. Leaders need not only the traditional technical and managerial skills

125
of the past but also well-honed transformational competencies emphasizing mission

articulation, vision, and inspirational motivation (Trottier et al., 2008a).

The researcher used the theoretical framework of the full range leadership model

(Bass & Bass, 2008) to examine the leadership behavior of police sergeants. The full-

range of leadership model, was developed by Bernard Bass and Bruce Avolio (1990) and

includes: (a) four components of transformational leadership, (b) several components of

transactional leadership, and (c) laissez-faire (or nonleadership) behavior (Bass, Riggio,

2006). This research study of first-line supervisors within a police department consisted

of in-depth interviews, direct observations of sergeants on duty, and the administration of

the MLQ. Out of a possible 24 sergeants, 14 volunteered to be part of the study, 9 were

interviewed and 2 were observed. Gronn (1999) reported that the study of leadership

tends to be focused on completing surveys and filling out questionnaires. He called for

trained observers to record and report on the effects of transformational leadership. Using

a qualitative approach, this researcher, through in-depth interviews and direct

observations, addressed the issues raised by Gronn. As part of the researcher’s

preparation she conducted a number of observations after months of cultivating

relationship with the police command and familiarizing herself with the basics of police

work. This included going on patrol, shooting range, and spending time at the sergeant’s

desk as an observer. As the research began, the researcher took an observer/participant

role so as to better understand the environment being operated in.

This study attempted to answer some key questions dealing with leadership style,

leadership development within this police department, and the experiences of sergeants as

they transition from police officer to first line supervisors. The study took place within a

126
city of a suburban county in New York State. The police department serves a racially

mixed community with a wide range of economic capacity. A questionnaire was

developed with both open-ended and closed questions and the interviews occurred on a

one-to-one basis. A code book was developed to process the interviews, which were

recorded and subsequently transcribed. A number of a priori themes were identified while

some emergent ones surfaced during the analysis. The reported data were rich and

nuanced. A frequency count was done within as well as among the interviews.

The findings support that transformational leadership exists within the police

department under study. It also appears that the leadership style of the sergeants tended to

be more transformational than transactional when one accounts for the results of the

MLQ, in depth interviews and observation. Leadership development takes many forms

within this police department, however, there seems to be an informal set of interactions

that foster leadership but yet needs to be institutionalized in order to secure the

competencies needed for 21st-century policing.

Using the matrix provided by Bass and Kouzes and Posner it was evident that the

police sergeants described themselves in such a way that the key elements of these three

authors’ works were being both reported and confirmed as being in practice as witnessed

during the observations. An interesting finding was the fact that the concept of challenge

the process did not show as a subtheme; this may be accounted for because police

departments, by virtue of being a paramilitary organization, are highly structured, rule-

bound, and hierarchical. Strict compliance is desired and deviations are met with severe

consequences.

127
 However, when one examines the concept of challenge the process as defined by

Kouzes and Posner, it becomes apparent that element of it does exist at some level within

this organization. Challenges the process happens when leaders create an environment

where innovation, improvement, and growth can come to pass. The discovery of

transformational leadership behavior within this predominantly hierarchal organization

leads the researcher to believe that processes have been challenged. For example the

paradigm shift from one form of policing strategies methods to community oriented

policing service is one example. One can suggest that the evolution of the Echo Bay

Police Department to a full-service police department was as a result of challenges to the

status quo. Further, this police department develops needed leadership competencies

within sergeant ranks by highlighting the need for practice, mentoring, a coaching

approach, and learning from their superiors. The sergeants felt that a college education

was helpful in professionalizing the police force. The availability of tuition

reimbursement was experienced positively. They thought that job rotation, enlargement,

and enrichment existed within this police department and that such processes were

desirable.

Sergeants seemed to recollect the challenges of their transition as centered on not

being ready and the difficulty in supervising former and more experienced colleagues.

The sergeants reported needing to be more ready to be accountable for their subordinates,

being authentic, and seeking advice as needed. The sergeants were satisfied with current

levels of professional development but thought there could be more. A mentoring

program was often suggested as one viable option for preparing sergeants as was

shadowing more experienced officers. Sergeant also felt that years of diverse experiences

128
in different units enhance one’s knowledge and allow for a more rounded sergeant. It was

also clear that a number of sergeants thought that leadership could be taught but that such

had limitations. It was clear that the sergeants were committed to their crafts; that their

work was complex, stressful, technical, social and transformational. They have kept the

Echo Bay community safe, indeed, my community safe. They were willing to be critical,

but clearly wanted to part of a learning organization. Finally, it would seem appropriate

that the police commissioner should be commended for the quality and overall

professionalism of his sergeants and accessing the expertise of a leadership consultant to

help design a strategic plan for talent management would propel this police department

into the upper strata of cutting edge police departments.

129
 References

Aggarwal, U., Datta, S., & Bhargava, S. (2007). The relationship between human
resource practices, psychological contract and employee engagement—
implications for managing talent. IIMB Management Review, 19(3), 313-325.
Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Alsabrook, C., Aryani, G. A., & Garrett, T. (2001, May). Five Principles of Leadership.
Law and Order Magazine, May 2001, 112-115. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Avolio, B. (1999). Full Leadership Development Building the Vital Forces in

Organization, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.

Avolio, B. J., Bass, B. M., & Jung, D. I. (1999). Re-examining the components of
transformational and transactional leadership using the multifactor leadership
questionnaire. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 72(4),
441-463. doi: 10.1348/096317999166789

Bain, R. R. (1939). The policeman on the beat. Scientific Monthly, New York, 48, 450–
458. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Baker, E. B. (2006). Effective police leadership: Moving beyond management (2nd ed.).
Flushing, NY: Looseleaf Law Publications, Inc.

Balk, W. L. (1974). Why don’t public administrators take productivity more seriously?
Public Personnel Management, 3(4), 318. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Bass, B. M. (1985). Leadership and Performance Beyond Expectation. New York: Free
Press.

Bass, B. M. (1997). Does the transactional-transformational leadership paradigm

transcend organizational and national boundaries? American Psychologist, 52(2),
30-139. doi: 10.1037/0003-066X.52.2.130

Bass, B. M. (1999). Two decades of research and development in transformational

leadership. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 8(1), 9-
32. doi: 10.1080/135943299398410

Bass, B. M., & Avolio, B. J. (1990). Developing transformational leadership: 1992 and
beyond. Journal of European Industrial Training, 14(5), 21-27. Retrieved from
EBSCOhost.

130
Bass, M. B., & Bass, R. (2008). The Bass handbook of leadership: Theory, research &
managerial applications (4th ed.). New York: NY: Free Press.

Bass, B., & Riggio, R. (2006). Transformational leadership (2nd ed.). Mahwah, NJ:
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Becker, G. S. (1993). Human capital: A theoretical and empirical analysis with special
reference to education (3rd ed.). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Bennis, W. (2009). On becoming a leader: The leadership classic. Philadelphia: Basic

Books—Perseus Books Group.

Bennis, W. & Nanus, B. (1985). Leaders: The strategies for taking charge. New York,
NY: Harper & Row.

Berger, L. A., & Berger, D. R. (2004). The management handbook: Creating

organizational excellence by identifying, developing, and promoting your best
people. Madison, WI: McGraw-Hill, CWL Publishing Enterprises, Inc

Brundrett, M., Rhodes, C., & Gkolia, C. (2006). Planning for leadership succession:
Creating a talent pool in primary schools. Education 3-13, 34(3), 259-268.
doi:10.1080/03004270600898919

Bureau of Justice Assistance. (2008). Law enforcement leadership initiative. Retrieved

from http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/BJA/pdf/LELI.pdf

Burns, J. M. (1978). Leadership. New York, NY: Harper & Row.

Butterfield, R., Edwards, C., Woodall, J.,(2005). The new public management and
managerial roles: The case of the police sergeant. British Journal of Management,
16, 329–341 doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8551.2005.00466.x

Center for Problem Oriented Policing. (2011). Pop center: About us. [Organization web
site.] Retrieved from http://www.popcenter.org/about/?p=whatiscpop

City and County of San Francisco Department of Human Resources, Civil Service
Reform. (2005). Preserving the promise of government. Retrieved from
http://www.sfdhr.org/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=2491

Cottrell, R., & McKenzie, J. (2005). Health promotion: Education research methods.
Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett Publishing.

Creswell, J.W. (2007). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five
approaches (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.

Creswell, J. (2009). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods

approaches (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA. Sage Publications, Inc.

131
Deluga, R. J., & Souza, J. (1991). The effects of transformational and transactional
leadership styles on the influencing behaviour of subordinate police officers.
Journal of Occupational Psychology, 64(1), 49–55. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Department of Homeland Security. (2008). Homeland Security Act of 2002: Title 1 –

Department of Homeland Security, Sec. 101, Executive department mission [web
page]

Downton, J. V. (1973). Rebel leadership: Commitment and charisma in a revolutionary

process. New York, NY: Free Press.

Durant, R. F., Kramer, R., Perry, J. L., Mesch, D., & Paarlberg, L. (2006). Motivating
employees in a new governance era: The performance paradigm revisited. Public
Administration Review, 66(4), 505-514. doi:10.1111/j.1540-6210.2006.00611.x

Engel, R. (2001). Supervisory styles of patrol sergeants and lieutenants. Journal of

Criminal Justice, 29, 341–355. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Engel, R. S. & Worden, R. E. (2003). Police officers’ attitudes, behaviors, and

supervisory influences: An analysis of problem solving. Criminology, 41(1), 131-
166. doi: 10.1111/j.1745-9125.2003.tb00984.x

Espedal, B. (2004) Management and leadership development in norway: Discrepancies

between talk and action. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 6(4),470-
485. doi: 10.1177/1523422304268382

Evert, G. (2001) A study of career development programs in Wisconsin municipal police

agencies (unpublished Master’s thesis).
www2.uwstout.edu/content/lib/thesis/2001/2001evertsg.pdf

Executive Office of the President, Office of Management and Budget. (2002). The
President’s management agenda. Retrieved from
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2002/mgmt.pdf

Fernandez, S. (2005). Developing and testing an integrative framework of public sector

leadership: Evidence from the public education arena. Journal of Public
Administration Research and Theory: J-PART, 15(2), 197-217. Retrieved from
http://www.jstor.org/stable/3525697

Frank, F. D., & Taylor, C. R. (2004). Talent management: Trends that will shape the
future. Human Resource Planning, 27(1), 33–41. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Garrow, V., & Hirsh, W. (2008). Talent management: Issues of focus and fit. Public
Personnel Management, 37(4), 389-402. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Gay, M., & Sims, D. (2007). Building tomorrow’s talent. A practitioner’s guide to talent
management and succession planning. Bloomington, IN: Author House.

132
Goodsell, C. T. (2004). The case for bureaucracy, a public administration polemic (4th
ed.). Washington, DC: CQ Press, A Division of Congressional Quarterly, Inc.

Gough, S, & Scott, W. (2000). Exploring the purpose of qualitative data coding in
educational enquiry: Insights from recent research. Educational Studies, 26(2),
339-354. doi: 10.1080/03055690050137141

Graen, G.B., & Uhl-Bien, M. (1995). Relationship-based approach to leadership:

Development of leader-member exchange (LMX) theory of leadership over 25
years: Applying a multi-level multi-domain perspective. Leadership Quarterly,
6(2), 219-247. doi: 10.1016/1048-9843(95)90036-5

Guthridge, M., Komm, A. B., & Lawson, E. (2006). The people problem in talent
management. McKinsey Quarterly, (2), 6-8. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Haberfeld, M. R. (2002). Critical issues in police training. Saddle River, NJ: Person
Education, Inc.

Haberfeld, M. R., (2006). Police leadership. Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.

Hackett, R. D., Farh, J. L., Song, L. J., & Lipierre, L. M. (2003). LMX and organizational
citizenship behavior: Examining the links within and across western and Chinese
samples. In G. Graen (Ed.), Dealing with diversity: LMX leadership (pp. 219-
263). Greenwich, CT: Information Age.

Hancock, D., & Algozzine, B. (2006). Doing case study research: A practical guide for
beginning researchers. New York: Teachers’ College Press.

Harbison, F., & Myers, C. A. (1964). Education and employment in the newly developing
economies. Comparitive Education Review, 8(1), 5–10. Retrieved from
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1186466

Hennessey, Jr., J. T. (1998). “Reinventing” government: Does leadership make the

difference? Public Administration Review, 58(6), 522–532. Retrieved from
EBSCOhost.

Herr, K., & Anderson, G. (2005). The action research dissertation: A guide for students
and faculty. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publishing, Inc.

Homeland Security Act, Pub.L. 107–296, 116 Stat. 745 (2002) Retrieved from
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-107publ296/content-detail.html

Homeland Security Advisory Council. (2010, Spring). Countering Violent Extremism

Working Group [Recommendations.] Washington, DC: Homeland Security
Advisory Council. Retrieved from
http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/hsac_cve_working_group_recommendations.pdf

133
Ianni-Reuss, E. (1983). Two cultures of policing: Street cop and management cop. New
Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, Inc.

Isenberg, J. (2010). Police leadership in a democracy: Conversations with America’s

police chiefs. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, Taylor and Francis Group

Javidan, M., & Waldman, D. A. (2003). Exploring charismatic leadership in the public
sector: Measurement and consequences. Public Administration Review, 63(2),
229-242. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/977593

Johnson, R. (2005, August). Developing the new sergeant. Law and Order Magazine,
53(8) 24. Retrieved from ProQuest (Document ID: 893424761).

Jurkiewicz, C. L., & Massey Jr., T. K. (1997). What motivates municipal employees: A
comparison of supervisory vs. non-supervisory personnel. Public Personnel
Management, 26(3), 367–377. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Kakabadse, A., Korac-Kakabadse, N., & Kouzmin, A. (2003). Ethics, values and
behaviors: Comparison of three case studies examining the paucity of leadership
in government. Public Administration, 81(3), 477-508.
doi:10.1111/1467-9299.00357

Kane, T., & Tremble, T. (2000). Transformational leadership effect at different levels of
the Army. Military Psychology, 12(2), 137-160. doi: 10.1177/1359105307071742

Kelling, G. L., Bratton, W. J. (1993). Implementing community policing: The

administrative problem. Perspectives on Policing, 17. Retrieved from the U.S.
Department of Justice, http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/141236.pdf

Kettl, D. Ingram, P., Sanders, R. P., Horner, C. (1996). Civil Service Reform Building a
Government That Works. New York, NY: The Brookings Institute.

Knowles, M. S. (2005). The adult learner: A neglected species (3rd ed.). San Diego, CA:
Elsevier, Inc

Knowles, M. S., Holton, E. F., & Swanson, R. The adult learner: The definitive classic in
adult education and human resource development (6th ed.). Burlington, MA:
Berrett-Koehler Publisher

Kouzes, J., & Posner, B. (2007). The leadership challenge (4th ed.). San Francisco, CA:
Jossey-Bass.

Lewis, G. B., & Frank, S. A. (2002). Who wants to work for government? Public
Administration Review, 62(4), 395-404. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

134
Masood, S., Dani, S., Burns, N., & Backhouse, C. (2006). Transformational leadership
and organizational culture: The situational strength perspective. Proceedings of
the Institution of Mechanical Engineers—Part B—Engineering Manufacture
(Professional Engineering Publishing), 220(6), 941-949. Retrieved from
EBSCOhost.

Maxwell, J. (2005). Qualitative research design: An iterative approach (2nd ed.).

Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.

McLean, G. N., & McLean, L. (2001). If we can’t define HRD in one country, how can
we define it in an international context. Human Resource Development
International, 4(3), 313-326. Available from Education Research Complete,
accession 5888893.

Medicare Fraud: A $60 Billion Crime. (2010, September 5). CBS news: 60 minutes.
Retrieved from
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/09/01/60minutes/main6825948.shtml

Murphy, S. A. (2006). Executive development and succession planning: Qualitative

evidence. International Journal of Police Science & Management, 8(4), 253-265.
Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Murphy, S. A. (2008). The role of emotions and transformational leadership on police

culture: An autoethnographic account. International Journal of Police Science &
Management, 10(2), 165-178. doi: 10.1350/ijps.2008.10.2.72

Murphy, S. A. & Drodge, E. N. (2004). The four I’s of police leadership: A case study
heuristic. International Journal of Police Science & Management, 6(1 & 2), 1–15.
Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Nadler, L. & Nadler, Z. (Eds.) (1990). The handbook of human resource development
(2nd. ed.). New York, NY: Wiley.

New York State Department of Civil Service. (2004). Strategic directions. Retrieved
from
http://www.cs.state.ny.us/businesssuite/docs/reports/EBD%20Strategic%20Direct
ions.pdf

New York State Department of Civil Service. (2006). Understanding the appointment
process for police officers—Manual. Retrieved from
http://criminaljustice.state.ny.us/ops/docs/other/other_pubs/police.pdf

New York State Department of Civil Service. (2011). New York State civil service law.
Jurisdictional classification. Retrieved from
http://www.cs.state.ny.us/pio/summaryofcslaw/summofcsl-juris-class.cfm

135
New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services, Office of Justice Research and
Performance. (2008). Crime in New York State: 2008 final data. Retrieved from
http://criminaljustice.state.ny.us/pio/annualreport/crimeupdate2008.pdf

New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services. (2009). Law enforcement
personnel. Retrieved from http://www.
www.criminaljustice.state.ny.us/crimnet/ojsa/2009_le_personnel.pdf

New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS), Office of Public Safety.
(2009). Directory of New York State law enforcement training academies.
Retrieved from
http://criminaljustice.state.ny.us/ops/training/zoneacademies/index.htm

New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services. (2009). Basic course for police
officers. Retrieved from http:// www.criminaljustice.state.ny.us/ops/training/bcpo/
- 13k - 2010-09-23

New York State Law Enforcement Accreditation Program. (2009). Standard and
Compliance Verification Manual. Retrieved from
http://www.criminaljustice.state.ny.us/ops/docs/accred/standards_and_compliance
_verification_manual_2009.pdf

New York State Public Officers Law. Laws 1909, Chap. 51. Retrieved from
http://www.tenant.net/Other_Laws/Pubofc/puboftoc.html

Northouse, P. (2007). Leadership Theory and Practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage
Publications, Inc.

O’Hara, P. (2005). Why law enforcement organizations fail: Mapping the organizational
fault lines in policing. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press

Ospina, S (2004) Qualitative research. In G. R. Goethals, G. S. Sorenson, & J. M. Burns

(Eds.), Encyclopedia of Leadership 2004 (pp. 1279-1284). Thousand Oaks, CA:
Sage Publications, Inc.

Parry, K., & Sinha, P. (2005). Researching the trainability of transformational

organizational leadership. Human Resource Development International, 8(2),
165-183. doi: 10.1080/13678860500100186

Patten, M. (2009). Understanding research methods: An overview of essentials (7th ed.).

Glendale, CA: Pyrczak Publishing

Pfeffer, J. (2001). Fighting the war for talent is hazardous to your organization’s health.
Organizational Dynamics, 29(4), 248-259. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Phillips, W. E., & Burrell, D. (2009). Decision-making skills that encompass a critical
thinking orientation for law enforcement professionals. International Journal of
Police Science & Management, 11(2), 141–149. doi: 10.1350/ijps.2009.11.2.118

136
Puzzanchera, C. (2009). Juvenile arrests 2008. Washington, DC: Office of Justice
Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Juvenile Justice Bulletin, December 2009.
Retrieved from http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/228479.pdf

Reilly, P. (2008). Identifying the right course for talent management. Public Personnel
Management, 37(4), 381-388. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Sanger, M. B. (2008). From measurement to management: Breaking through the barriers

to state and local performance. Public Administration Review, 68(6), S70-S85.
doi:10.1111/j.1540-6210.2008.00980.x

Saunders, C. (1970). Upgrading the American police: Education and training for better
law enforcement. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.

Schafer, J. (2009). Developing effective leadership in policing: Perils, pitfalls, and paths
forward. Policing, 32(2), 238-260. Retrieved from
www.emeraldinsight.com/1363-951X.htm

Selden, S. C., Ingraham, P. W., & Jacobson, W. (2001). Human resource practices in
state government: Findings from a national survey. Public Administration Review,
61(5), 598–607. doi: 10.1111/0033-3352.00130.

Shiramizu, S., & Singh, A. (2006). Influence of the national performance review on
supervisors in government organizations. Leadership & Management in
Engineering, 6(4), 150-159. doi:10.1061/(ASCE)1532-6748(2006)6:4(150)

Singer, M. S., & Singer, A. E. (1990). Situational constraints on transformational versus

transactional leadership behavior, subordinates' leadership preference, and
satisfaction. Journal of Social Psychology, 130(3), 385–396. Retrieved from
EBSCOhost.

Sklansky, D. A. (2005). Police and democracy. Michigan Law Review, 103, 1699-1830.
Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Steinheider, B., & Wuestewald, T. (2008). From the bottom-up: Sharing leadership in a
police agency. Police Practice & Research, 9(2), 145–163.
doi:10.1080/15614260802081303

Swanson, R. (1995, Summer). Human resource development: Performance is the key.

Human Resource Development Quarterly, 6(2), 207–213. Retrieved from
EBSCOhost.

Swanson, R. (1997). The foundations of performance improvement and implications for

practice. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 1(1), 1–25.
doi: 10.1177/152342239900100102

Swanson, R. & Holton. E. (2009). Foundation of human resource development (2nd ed.).
San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.

137
Trottier, T., Van Wart, M., & Wang, X. (2008a). Examining the nature and significance
of leadership in government organizations. Public Administration Review, 68(2),
319–333. doi:10.1111/j.1540-6210.2007.00865.x

Trottier, T., Van Wart, M., & Wang, X. (2008b). Reinforcing the need for more
sophistication in leadership studies in the government sector. Public
Administration Review, 68, 1172–1174. doi:10.1111/j.1540-6210.2008.00968_4.x

U.S. Census Bureau. (2008). American community survey. Retrieved from

http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/NPtable?_bm=y&-
qr_name=ACS_2008_1YR_G00_N

U.S. Department of Justice. (n.d.). Community oriented policing services: Community

policing defined. Washington, DC: Author. Retrieved from
http://www.cops.usdoj.gov/Default.asp?Item=36

U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Juvenile Justice Bulletin.
(December 2009). Retrieved from http://www.opj.usdoj.gov

Van Maanen (1984) Making rank: Becoming an American police sergeant. Urban life,
13(2–3), 155–176. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Van Wart, M. (2003). Public sector leadership theory: An assessment. Public

Administration Review, 63(2), 214–228. doi: 10.1111/1540-6210.00281

Vito, G. F., Walsh, W. F., & Kunselman, J. (2005). Compstat: The manager’s
perspective. International Journal of Police Science & Management, 7(3), 187–
196. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Waldman, D. A., Bass, B. M., & Einstein, W. O. (1987). Leadership and outcomes of
performance appraisal processes. Journal of Occupational Psychology, 60
Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Waldman, D. A., Bass, B. M., & Yammarino, F. J. (1990). Adding to contingent-reward

behavior: The augmenting effect of charismatic leadership. Group and
Organizational Studies, 15 Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Wallace Ingraham, P., & Getha-Taylor, H. (2005). Common sense, competence, and
talent in the public service in the USA: Finding the right mix in a complex world.
Public Administration, 83(4), 789-803. doi:10.1111/j.0033-3298.2005.00476.x

Walumbwa, F. O., Avolio, B. J., Gardner, W. L., Wernsing, T. S., & Peterson, S. J.
(2008). Authentic leadership: Development and validation of a theory-based
measure. Journal of Management, 34(1), 89-126.
doi:10.1177/0149206307308913

138
Wang, H., Law, K. S., Hackett, R. D., Wang, D., & Zhen, X. C. (2005). Leader-member
exchange as a mediator of the relationship between transformational leadership
and followers’ performance and organizational citizenship behavior. Academy of
Management Journal, 48(3), 420-432. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Wasylyshyn, K. M. (2008). Behind the door: Keeping business leaders focused on how
they lead. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 60(4), 314-
330. doi:10.1037/a0014041

Westchester County Department of Public Safety. (2008). Annual report. Retrieved from
http://www.westchestergov.com/ps/Co_PD_PDF_Forms/AnnualReport2008.pdf

White, M. D., & Escobar, G. (2008). Making good cops in the twenty-first century:
Emerging issues for the effective recruitment, selection and training of police in
the United States and abroad. International Review of Law Computers &
Technology, 22(1–2), 119–134. doi: 10.1080/13600860801925045

Woodard, C. A. (2005). Merit by any other Name—Refraining the civil service first
principle. Public Administration Review, 65(1), 109-116. doi:10.1111/j.1540-
6210.2005.00435.x

Wright, A., Alison, L., & Crego, J. (2008). The current state of police leadership
research. In A. Lawrence & J. Crego (Eds.), Policing critical incidents:
Leadership and critical incident management (pp. 54–80). Portland, OR: Willan
Publishing.

Wynn, M. (2008). Rising through the ranks: Leadership tools and techniques for law
enforcement. New York, NY: Kaplan Publishing.

Yammarino, F. J., & Bass, B. M. (1990). In K. E. Clark, M. B. Clark, K. E. Clark, M. B.

Clark (Eds.) , Measures of leadership (pp. 151–169). West Orange, NJ US:
Leadership Library of America. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Yin, R. (2009). Case study research: Design and methods (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA:
Sage Publishing, Inc.

Zacharatos, A., Barling, J., & Kelloway, E. K. (2000). Development and effects of
transformational leadership in adolescents. Leadership Quarterly, 11(2), 211-226.
Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

139
 Appendix A: Organization Chart, Echo Bay

Police
Commissioner

Internal Affairs
Unit
Deputy Police
Commissioner

Quality
Assurance Unit

Staff Services Police Services Criminal

Division Division Investigation Division

Records Unit

General
Communications
PACT Patrol Special Traffic Investigations
Unit Operations Unit
Unit Tours Unit Unit
Training Critical Parking
Unit 1st Incident Property Theft
Best Unit Enforcement Unit
Officers Tour
City Code
Alarm K-9 Enforcement
Monitoring Youth 2nd Special
Unit Officers Tour Unit Investigation
Fleet
Management Unit
Bicycle/
Segway 3rd Harbor DEA Task
Property &
Patrol Tour Unit Taxi Licensing Force
Evidence Unit

Community Forensic Unit

Resources School
Information Coordinator Crossing
System Unit

Warrant Unit
Jail/Court
Liaison Unit

140
 Appendix B: Sergeant Letter & Informed Consent

Dear Sergeant:

My name is Betty Campbell and I would like to invite you to be part of a research
study that I am conducting. This project is part of the requirement for a Doctorate in
Executive Leadership at Saint John Fisher College. My affiliation with the college as a
doctoral student can be verified by contacting Dr. Claudia Edwards, Faculty, School of
Education, at (914) ***-**** or by email at claudiaedwards@****.net

Police Commissioner ***** authorized your voluntary participation in this

research study. Your participation in this study is entirely voluntary. You may choose not
to participate without any adverse consequences. One’s decision to participate and/or not
to participate will not be reported to one’s supervisor or the Commissioner. Information
provided for the purpose of this study will only be reported in aggregate and in an
anonymous format.

The purpose of my study is to determine the leadership behaviors of first line

supervisors and to examine the extent to which police departments practice the tenets of
leadership development. My research study will consist of a survey, interviews and
observations. The surveys will determine the leadership style of sergeants based on the
Full Range Leadership Model. An electronic version of the Multifactor Leadership
Questionnaire (MLQ) will be distributed via email to the sergeants. The survey will take
about 10 minutes to complete. The interviews will take no longer than one hour and will
be scheduled at a time convenient for the sergeant. The in-depth interviews will examine
the sergeant’s perceptions of their leadership styles and leadership development
opportunities afforded to them. The field observation will allow the researcher to observe
the sergeant’s in their work environment. The data collected from the in-depth interviews
and field observations will be kept confidential and only be reported in an anonymous
and aggregate format.

Information will be recorded by way of hand-written notes and audio recordings.

Where appropriate, the information will be summarized, in anonymous format, in the
body of the final report. The audio recordings will be transcribed and then destroyed
immediately afterwards. At no time will any specific comments be attributed to any
individual unless specific agreement has been obtained beforehand. All documentation
will be kept strictly confidential. The survey instrument and in depth interviews will be
coded to ensure confidentiality. All documents collected will be kept for the required
period of time as specified by Saint John Fisher College Institutional Review Board. All
documents will be kept in a secured cabinet.

141
 In addition to submitting this research study to Saint John Fisher College in
partial fulfillment for a Doctorate in Executive Leadership, I will be sharing my research
findings with the Echo Bay Police Department. My research findings might also be used
in journal articles, presentations, and publications. A copy of the final report will be
stored at Saint John Fisher College and available online through Proquest. Access and
distribution will be unrestricted.

You are not compelled to participate in this research study. If you choose to
participate, you are free to withdraw at any time without prejudice. If you would like to
participate please contact me at: bc8846sj@cnr.edu or at (914)***- ****

Sincerely,

Betty L. Campbell, Researcher

142
 Informed Consent

St. John Fisher College

INFORMED CONSENT FORM

Title of study: Sergeants As Leaders: A Case Study of Transformational Leadership

among First-line Supervisors in a Police Department

Name(s) of researcher(s): Betty L. Campbell

Faculty Supervisor: Dr. Claudia Edwards, Chair SJFC Ed.D. Program in Executive
Leadership at the College of New Rochelle
Phone for further information: (914) ***-****

Purpose of study: This study contributes to the literature by presenting empirical

evidence for leadership development in law enforcement. This study will examine a
specific leadership framework known as the Full Range Leadership Model which consists
of transformational, transactional and laissez-faire leadership styles. The researcher will
investigate: (a) the leadership styles of sergeants in a police department, (b) the sergeants’
perceptions of the extent to which they practice the tenets of transformational leadership,
and (c) how do police departments develop the leadership competencies of their police
sergeants?

Approval of study: This study has been reviewed and approved by the St. John Fisher
College Institutional Review Board (IRB).
Place of study:

Length of participation: 5 months

Risks and benefits: The expected risks and benefits of participation in this study are
explained below:

There is no risk associated with participation.

Expected benefits include contributing to present and future practices, augmenting
current literature in the field of study.

Method for protecting confidentiality/privacy: The leadership surveys will be

administered via a secured electronic website. Each participant will be assigned a number
which will be associated with their demographic data. Participants will not be required to
provide their names or any other data that would identify who they are.

Your rights: As a research participant, you have the right to:

143
 1. Have the purpose of the study, and the expected risks and benefits fully
explained to you before you choose to participate.
2. Withdraw from participation at any time without penalty.
3. Refuse to answer a particular question without penalty.
4. Be informed of the results of the study.

I have read the above, received a copy of this form, and I agree to participate in the
above-named study.

Print name (Participant) Signature Date

Print name (Investigator) Signature Date

If you have any further questions regarding this study, please contact the

researcher listed above. If you experience emotional or physical discomfort due to

participation in this study, please contact the Office of Academic Affairs at 385-8034 or

the Wellness Center at 385-8280 for appropriate referral.

144
 Appendix C: Leadership Questionnaire

1. Sgt. Thoughts on Leadership

How do you define leadership?

What are some characteristics that you attribute to effective leadership?
What does police leadership look like? How important is leadership in policing?
Do you think that leadership can be taught? Why or why not?
What are some of the leadership qualities that you posses?
What do you think are critical leadership qualities that sergeants need to have?
What are some of your values and beliefs surrounding leadership? How often do you
discuss your beliefs and values with your subordinates?
How relevant is leadership training for police officers?

2. Sgt. Perceptions on their own Leadership Development (opportunities provided by the

organization & self directed)

What type of career development opportunities are or have been available to you?
Were the career development opportunities helpful? Why or Why not?
How have you developed your own leadership skills/qualities based on the career
development you have received?
What was the single most important career advice you received when you became a
sergeant and from whom?
What leadership training did you receive before you started that your felt was helpful as
you started your sergeant duties?
Did you have a role model before you became a sergeant and what did you learn from
him or her?
Does the same person remain your role model today and why or why not?
Did you feel prepared when you first became a sergeant? (Regardless of answer why?)
Prioritize the professional development tools that you were exposed to as you became
a new sergeant, which did you think was most effective

a. Mentoring

b. Coaching

145
 c. Modeling

d. Classroom instruction

e. Job rotation

f. Tactical instruction

g. Assertiveness training

h. Job enlargement (being ask to do things that gave you a broader perspective than
being an officer

i. Spending time with a veteran sergeant

j. Management training

k. Shadowing a veteran officer

3. Sgt. Perceptions on how they develop the police officers under their span of control

What leadership characteristics do you value and how do you communicate and/or
model those values to your subordinates?
How do you develop the leadership competencies of your subordinates?
Do you seek /give feedback to others?
o Can you describe a time when you had to seek out the perspectives of others
(supervisor, peer, subordinate) when solving a problem.

4. Sgt. Perception on their transition from line officer to supervisor.

Why did you become a sergeant?

How long where you a police officer before becoming a sergeant?
How long have you been a sergeant?
How many officers do you supervise?
Can you tell me about your experience as you transitioned from being a line officer to a
supervisor?
What were some of your most difficult challenges
What were some of the supervision challenges you faced and how did you deal with
them?
If there was one thing that you would have like to have been taught prior to your first
day as a sergeant what would it be?
As you think about the next generation of sergeants what would you recommend that
the department do to prepare them and what did you think prepared you best?

146
As you think about your next job what development opportunities would you like to
have prior to making the next step on your career ladder?

147
 Appendix D: Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire

Leader Form (5x-Short)

SAMPLE QUESTIONS

This questionnaire is to describe your leadership style as you perceive it. Please answer
all items on this answer sheet. If an item is irrelevant, or if you are unsure or do not
know the answer, leave the answer blank.

Use the following rating scale:

Not at all Once in a while Sometimes Often Frequently not Often

0 1 2 3 4

1. I provide others with assistance in exchange for their efforts …………………….…....………0 1 2 3 4

2. I re-examine critical assumptions to question whether they are appropriate ….………….……0 1 2 3 4

3. I fail to interfere until problems become serious……………………………………………… 0 1 2 3 4

4. I focus attention on irregularities, mistakes, exceptions, and deviations from standards…… 01 23 4

5. I avoid getting involved when important issues arise…………………………………………. 0 1 2 3 4

148
149
 Appendix E: Demographic and Career /Professional Development Survey

CODE __________SGT_______

Demographics

1. What is your age?

o Under 20 years
o 20-25 years
o 26-35 years
o 36-45 years
o 46-55 years
o Over 55 years

2. What is your highest level of education attainment?

o High School Diploma
o Some college credits
o Associates Degree (2 year program)
o Bachelors Degree (4-year program)
o Graduate Degree (MA, MPA,MSW)
o Terminal Degree (JD, PH.D, ED.D)
o Other:
_________________________________________________________

(Example: vocational schools, certificate program)

3. What is your gender?
o Male
o Female

4. What is your race?

o White
o African American
o Hispanic or Latino origin
o Asian
o American Indian and Alaska Native
o Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander
o Other ___________________________ (please specify)

5. Marital Status
o Married
o Single
o Widow
o Separated
o Divorced

150
\
Professional/Career Development Survey

For purpose of this survey, “Professional/Career Development Program” is defined as: A formal
approach taken by the organization to provide employees with opportunities to participate in a
variety of developmental experiences.

1. Does your department have a formal career development program?

o Yes
o No

2. If yes, does it influence your decision to stay with the department?

o Yes
o No

3. What types of activities and/or opportunities are available for sworn officers?
(Check all that apply)
o Job Rotation: Moving to a specialized division/position for a set
amount of time.
o Job Enlargement: Taking on additional tasks.
o Job Enrichment: Giving responsibilities previously held by a
superior.
o Career Counseling: Providing feedback regarding individual
strengths and weaknesses.
o Career Planning: Setting individual goals and strategies to meet
them.
o Self-Assessment: Identifying individual interests.
o Educational Incentives: Receiving tuition
reimbursement/compensation for attendance.
o Training Incentives: Receiving extra compensation for training
attended.
o Other: Please list
________________________________________

4. Is there existing policy or bargaining language that impacts your opportunity to

participate in any of the above activities?
o Yes
o No
5. Are there any financial incentives associated with participating in any of the above
activities?
o Yes
o No

151
6. What influences your decision to participate in the above activities? (Check all that
apply)
o I find it personally rewarding
o I feel it would improve my overall performance
o I feel it would help develop my skills for future advancement
o I feel it will help me find the most appropriate job for me
o I feel the financial rewards are worthwhile
o I do not participate

7. Does the opportunity to work in a variety of work assignments influence your decision
to stay employed with the Police Department?
o Yes
o No
o I don’t know

8. Do you think that career and development activities impact the promotional process?
o Yes (go to #9)
o No (go to #10)
o I don’t know (go to #10)

9. How do career development activities impact the promotional process?

10. Do you think participation in career development activities should impact the
promotional process?
o Yes (go to #11)
o No (go to #12)

11. Why do you believe participation in career development activities should impact the
promotional process?

12. Why do you believe participation in career development activities should not impact
the promotional process?

13. Have you experienced any professional benefits by participating in career

development activities?
o Yes
o No

14. How long have you been employed with the Police Department?
o 2-5 years
o 6-10 years
o 11-15 years
o 16-20 years
o Over 21

152
15. How long have you been a supervisor?
o Under 2 years
o 2-5 years
o 6-10 years
o 11-15 years
o 16-20 years
o Over 21

16. How many sworn officers do you supervise?

o Under 10
o 10-30
o 31-50
o 51-80
o Over 80

153
 Appendix F: Frequency count for all 96 themes relating to all four research

questions.

# Theme Percent of All

Theme Interviews Frequency Responses
Accountable for Subordinates 8 14 2
Accuracy is Important 1 1 0
Active Listening 5 13 2
Air of Authority 2 2 0
Ambition 8 29 4
Analytical / Crit. Thinker 3 9 1
Apologize 2 2 0
Appearance is Significant 3 4 1
Approachable 1 2 0
Authenticity 4 5 1
Autodidact 6 10 1
Autonomy 6 11 1
Challenge the Process 2 9 1
Close Supervision 7 13 2
Coaching Approach 8 35 5
Common Sense 1 3 0
Control Emotions 4 9 1
Decisiveness 5 15 2
Disciplining Officers 5 6 1
Disseminate Information 2 3 0
Effective Communication 7 12 2
Enable Others to Act 2 4 1
Encourage the Heart 7 20 3
Equal Treatment 4 8 1
Extrinsic Motivation 4 4 1
Fulfill Duties by Book 3 6 1
Guidance 6 10 1
Hands-On Training 3 3 0
High Intellect 1 2 0
High Performer 4 10 1
Idealized Attributes 3 4 1
Idealized Behaviors 2 4 1
Idealized Influence / Char. 4 25 3
Impression Mgmt. 3 24 3
Individualized Consideration 9 34 4
Initiative 6 16 2
Insp. Mot. / Insp. Shared Vis. 4 8 1
Intellectual Openness 3 4 1

154
Intellectual Stimulation 3 5 1
Intrinsic Motivation 4 6 1
Job Satisfaction 6 8 1
Know / Use Staff Skill Var. 2 4 1
Know Thyself 6 16 2
Knowledge 8 38 5
Leadership Can be Taught with Limitations 9 14 2
Liaison Role 4 7 1
Luck 4 13 2
Maintain Integrity 9 57 7
Mentoring 7 26 3
Model the Way 6 21 3
Modeling Other Leaders 9 35 5
Money as Incentive for Promotion 4 8 1
Not Ready for Leadership Role 4 1 0
Observe 4 5 1
Optimism 1 1 0
Participative Leadership 4 9 1
Practice 3 3 0
Provide Feedback 5 8 1
Ready for Leadership Role 4 12 2
Remember Where You Came From 3 4 1
Seek Advice 3 7 1
Self-Confidence 6 11 1
Socio-Emotional Support 6 15 2
Task Identity 7 9 1
Task Significance 2 10 1
Team Building 6 19 2
Trust 3 3 0
Used Negative Role Models 2 5 1
Versatility in Mgmt. Styles 1 1 0
Total 777 100

155
 Appendix G: All Transformational Leadership Qualities

(Number of themes and sub-themes: 65)

n Theme All
Theme Subtheme Interviews Frequency Responses
Idealized
Attributes 3 4 1
Analytical or Critical Thinker 3 9 1
Apologize to subordinates
when you've made a mistake 2 2 0
Approachable 1 2 0
Authenticity 4 5 1
Authoritative Style or Active
Management by
Exception Attributes
—Served as Negative
Role Models 2 5 1
Common Sense 1 3 0
Decisiveness 5 15 2
High Intellect 1 2 0
Impression Management 3 24 3
Intellectual Openness 3 4 1
Know Thyself 6 16 2
Knowledge 8 38 5
Leadership Can be Taught
(with Limitations) 9 14 2
Model Other Leaders 9 35 5
Seek Advice 3 7 1
Idealized
Behaviors 2 4 1
Accountability for
subordinates 8 14 2
Accuracy is Important 1 1 0
Equal Treatment 4 8 1
Liaison Role 4 7 1
Maintain Personal and
Professional Integrity 9 57 8

156
 n Theme All
Theme Subtheme Interviews Frequency Responses

Idealized
Influence/
Charisma 4 25 3
Remember Where You Came
From 3 4 1
Team Building 6 19 3
Individualized
Consideration 9 34 5
Active Listening 5 13 2
Coaching approach 8 35 5
Guidance 6 10 1
Know and Use Staff Skill
variety 2 4 1
Mentoring 7 26 3
Provide Feedback 5 8 1
Task significance 2 10 1
Versatility in management
styles 1 1 0
Encourage the 7 20 3
Heart Close supervision 7 13 2
Socio-emotional support 6 15 2
Inspirational
Motivation /
Inspire Shared
Vision 4 8 1
Ambition 8 29 4
Autodidact 6 10 1
Disseminate information 2 3 0
High performer 4 10 1
Initiative 6 16 2
Intrinsic Motivation 4 6 1
Job Satisfaction 6 8 1
Optimism 1 1 0
Participative Leadership 4 9 1
Task identity 7 9 1
Intellectual
Stimulation 3 5 1
Hands-On Training 3 3 0
Practice 3 3 0

157
 n Theme All
Theme Subtheme Interviews Frequency Responses

Challenge the [No subthemes]

Process 2 9 1
Enable Others
to Act 2 4 1
Autonomy 6 11 1
Observe 4 5 1
Trust 3 3 0
Model the Way 6 21 3
Air of authority 2 2 0
Appearance is Significant 3 4 1
Control emotion 4 9 1
Disciplining Officers 5 6 1
Effective Communication 7 12 2
Fulfill Duties by the Book 3 6 1
Readiness for Leadership
Role 4 12 2
Self-confidence 6 11 1
Total 748 100

Note: Statistics for main themes are presented only for the occurrences of these themes
directly in interview texts. Rather, here, they do not represent all related subthemes, but
general references to the theme concepts themselves.

Themes and sub-themes occurred in varying frequencies and saturation across interviews.
Thus, they are presented here showing both the number of interviews in which they were
raised and the overall frequency with which they were raised. Percentages are of the total
number frequency of all themes and subthemes in this particular grouping.

158
 Appendix H: MLQ Subscales
Table H.1
Sergeants’ Individual Transformational Leadership Subscale Percentile Rankings on the MLQ
Transformational Leadership Subscales
Idealized Idealized
Influence Influence Inspirational Intellectual Individual Extra
Sergeant (Attributes) (Behaviors) Motivation Stimulation Consideration Effort Effectiveness Satisfaction with the Leadership
1 20 40 10 20 10 80 20

2 40 30 40 5 20 40 80 20

3 99* 95 90 80 95 95 80 95

4 60 5 5 1* 60 1* 20 80

5 60 40 30 80 80 70 95 95

6 70 10 60 40 90 70 40 60

7 70 10 20 10 20 70 80 80

8 95 40 60 60 90 70 40 60

9 30 60 20 10 10 10 20

10 60 40 40 70 40 70 95 95

11 70 5 1* 20 80 40 20 80

12 40 60 60 90 70 60 80

13 95 95 95 99* 95 95 95 95

14 70 40 40 80 95 10 90 95
* No corresponding percentile range was provided in the MLQ manual for score: 99 was used for scores above the highest available percentile; 1 was used for
scores below the lowest available percentile.

159
Table H.2

Sergeants’ Individual Transactional and Laissez-Faire Leadership Subscale Percentile

Rankings on the MLQ

Transactional Leadership Subscales

Management Management
Contingent by Exception by Exception Laissez-Faire
Sergeant Reward (Active) (Passive) Leadership
1 70 70 80 10

2 20 80 50 50

3 99* 95 20 30

4 1* 40 20 10

5 99* 30 70 10

6 80 70 1* 10

7 50 40 20

8 30 60 30 30

9 30 99* 20 10

10 99* 80 50 10

11 80 60 70

12 80 80 30 50

13 99* 80 20 10

14 30 99* 10 10
* No corresponding percentile range was provided in the MLQ manual for score: 99 was used for scores
above the highest available percentile; 1 was used for scores below the lowest available percentile.

160
 Appendix I: Frequency Counts for Themes Relating to Research Question 4,

Challenges for New Sergeants

Theme
Theme n Interviews Frequency All Responses
Engaging someone who is unwilling is challenging 3 3 27
Motivating staff in this economic climate is challenging 1 5 45
Hopelessness 4 2 18
Multitasking 1 1 9
Total 11 100

n
Theme Interviews Theme Frequency All Responses
Not Ready for Leadership Role 4 3 6
Patience 3 5 9
Provide On the Job Exp. Opportunities 7 19 36
Supervising Former Colleagues is a Challenge 9 24 45
Supervising Staff w/ More Job Time is a Challenge 1 2 4
Total 53 100

161